Beware The Dead Man
BY
James Lingard
Published by M-Y eBooks
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 James Lingard.
All Rights Reserved.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
The right of James Lingard to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All people and events depicted in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
PROLOGUE
Crack. A pistol shot echoed around the snow-capped peaks. Startled jackdaws rose from their nests. Night had begun to fall, and with it came the all-pervading cold made all the more merciless by a gusting wind.
Down amongst the twenty or so dwellings huddled together on a narrow ledge high in the Caucasus Mountains, a group of women redoubled their ululating as they prepared a funereal supper. The men began to chant salaams, which carried to the tiny group of mourners clustered around the freshly dug graves.
Sergei, in his long grey overcoat and wide-topped sheepskin hat, gazed down at the two bodies lying at his feet in open rough pine coffins, and bowed his head in respectful silence. ‘So young, so very young,’ he sighed, ‘yet their lives are over. They died for the cause. They are heroes.’
Then he stared thoughtfully at the lights of two distant villages, the one where he was born perched high above the other, under a towering rock peak which protected it from the worst rigors of the winter blizzards. These were his people, his mountains – range after range stretching into the mists.
Somehow, they seemed to give him the courage to glance across at Alexei, the local partisan leader, a giant of a man with an ugly scar on his right cheek which his black beard could not conceal. Their eyes did not meet and neither spoke.
A voice growled: ‘Good men, Comrade Sergei. This is Captain Yusuf’s work – not many can shoot like that.’
Sergei nodded. One of the bodies could so easily have been his own. Rumour had it that both he and Alexei were on Yusuf’s death list.
Alexei gripped the strap of the Kalashnikov slung across his back, his face ravaged by exhaustion and sorrow; but looked away, as if seeking comfort from the old sepulchres in the small cemetery, from the square stone towers of the mountain village – a relic of the past.
Crack. Two bodies; two shots - the proprieties had been observed. Sergei mouthed a silent prayer. Each body had a bullet hole in the centre of its forehead, and another through the heart; both would have been dead before they hit the ground.
Then the fire seemed to come into Alexei’s eyes as he pledged a blood feud with the Georgians – a feud to end all feuds. Sergei walked over and stood beside him – a gesture of solidarity.
Alexei responded with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks and turned to the villagers: ‘Now is the time for leadership; the time for vengeance. Follow me. These grenades clipped to the metal loops in my ammunition belt, this Kalashnikov, and the armed men around me, all have urgent work to do.’
He took a pace backwards, stood smartly to attention, then slowly raised his right arm above his head and clenched his fist. The whole village fell silent. With quiet dignity, he ordered: ‘Bury them. They will be avenged.’
Sergei bared his head and watched as the coffins were solemnly nailed down and lowered into the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes as they were covered with earth – out of sight for ever. As if to enhance the melancholy, a younger element began to dance to the accompaniment of a balalaika – a dance which grew faster and wilder as it progressed.
Alexei turned and walked slowly, head erect, back to his battered truck, followed by the three armed bodyguards who shadow him constantly. The engine roared into life and throbbed with a power the vehicle did not truly possess. A wave and it lurched down the bumpy track, escorted by a handful of village horsemen.
Sergei, more a politician than a man of action, was left reflecting on how he and Alexei first met. Back in the old days, both had attended a meeting of the Communist Party held in a smoke filled room where a dogmatist – long past his sell-by date – had droned on endlessly.
At the first opportunity, despite the Chairman’s efforts, Alexei had sprung to his feet: ‘Make no mistake, comrades; the people of the mountains are set to throw off the tyranny of Moscow.
Such treachery was not well received. Sergei had saved the situation by leading the audience in a rousing rendering of the ‘Red Flag’, their voices charged with emotion:
‘The people’s flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts blood dyed its every fold.
Then raise the scarlet banner high,
Within its shade we’ll live or die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer;
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.’
They ended with ecstatic applause and sang it again. But as the meeting broke up, Sergei had found himself bundled into a van, blindfolded, and driven away at high speed. Who were his captors; secret police? He had no idea, but desperately wished he was somewhere else.
When the blindfold was removed, he found himself sitting in isolation, perched on a sunlit boulder high in the roof of the world. Below him, the ground fell away steeply to the top of a sheer cliff. No escape that way unless one tired of life.
His ledge broadened into a tiny hamlet – a few buildings in surprisingly good condition, mostly with tin roofs. Above them a clutch of ancient sepulchres survived, giving the place a weird look; an appearance enhanced by an ancient staircase cut into the sheer rock face – once leading to a place of sacrifice, but now seemingly reaching for the sky.
These were not the mountains he knew; they were on the north face of the Caucasus – he could tell that from the sun. Worse, his captors spoke an entirely different language and he lived in constant fear that they would kill him on the slightest pretext. They seemed so confident, these men with their big knives – Kalashnikovs slung across their backs.
In such circumstances, the invigorating mountain air, the spectacular views, meant nothing. Nobody for miles around cared whether he lived or died. Sergei had never felt more alone, more wretched in all his life.
Then one day, a battered truck had come grinding up the track to the hamlet. Sergei had watched it with barely suppressed excitement. A sense of disbelief – rapidly superseded by elation swept over him. He raced down the slope towards the newcomers, waving his arms and shouting to draw their attention.
‘Halt.’ The command echoed through his head. He would never forget that moment. As he spun round and fell to his knees, the muscles of his stomach clenched as if to repel the bullets.
The new arrival calmly drew his pistol and fired one shot in the air. ‘Everyone stands still,’ he ordered. Alexei’s voice; it really was him.
Suddenly, Sergei was free. Free and utterly determined to stay by Alexei’s side like a shadow, until they were well away from that place.
They drove to Pyatigorsk where various Separatist leaders were meeting near the domed pavilion they call the Aeolian Harp. An ancient harp used to crown the building, its strings struck by a weather vane. Now, the effect has been recreated electronically – ethereal chords float on the wind giving a sense of timelessness emanating from a celestial force. Perhaps the leaders need all the inspiration they can get, he had thought, but he relished the opportunity to meet them.
Sergei had learned that his kidnappers were Chechens seeking a ransom; but the Chechens had now become allies of the Abkhaz Separatists – hence his release.
CHAPTER 1
THE CRADLE OF FEAR
‘The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.’ (Horace)
‘Keep going. Don’t give up now,’ I whispered urgently to the Abkhaz youth guiding me through the minefield around the wrecked village. For the last five minutes he had begun to glance at his watch. How come one so poor came to have a watch like that?
‘They mustn’t see me he hissed,’ ‘The mist helps, but it’s not safe. You’re clear of the mines now. This is as far as I go. Keep heading upwards towards that ridge.’ A wave and he ducked out of sight before I could stop him.
Ah well! No need to hurry. Not a sound. No one about; I had time enough to slip off my sodden trousers and socks and wring the water out of them - just my luck to slip as we crossed the river back there.
A rustle in the undergrowth startled me – a fox. ‘Take care Reynard – or they’ll think it’s me.’
What a fool I had been to volunteer to contact Sergei and report on the situation in Abkhazia; what a fool he had been to get involved in politics. But then, what’s the point of my having spent all those days in training if it’s not put to good use?
The Security Services had given me a telephone number in case of trouble. ‘Just ask for Jane – pretend she’s your girl friend, she’d like that – and we’ll get your message.’ A fat lot of comfort a call to Jane would be out here in the wild with a pack of murderous villagers hunting me down.
How was I supposed to know that they had chosen that very afternoon to indulge in another orgy of ethnic cleansing and liquidate their Georgian neighbours? Just my luck to stumble on the site of the mass grave they were preparing. So they want independence, but that’s not the way.
At that moment, a tannoy boomed out behind me. It sounded to come from back across the river; totally unexpected. The guttural accent still grates inside my head. How can I ever forget?
‘You’re a dead man, English. We know who you are, John Armstrong. Go home, or you die. You spy upon our people; you pay with your life. We make sure of that.’
I dodged behind the nearest clump of gorse and froze. So, they knew my name – that is the name I chose to use for the current mission. There is no John Armstrong; or if there is, it is someone else. But it is a name I would teach them to remember.
Just how could they know? They must have caught my guide. I had seen enough of their activities to know that torture came easily to them.
What next? Would a searchlight come stabbing through the darkness to illuminate me for one of their snipers? I could learn to hate the man with the tannoy – no doubt about that.
‘Kind of you to warn me,’ I muttered, ‘but I prefer to keep my whereabouts secret and here you are broadcasting my presence to everyone in earshot. There are people who would pay good money to know where I am.
No sign of pursuit – or was there? I squared my shoulders and began to quarter the bare hillside through my night glasses. Nothing; the swirling mist blotted out the river. But mist deadens sound. Impossible to be certain whether the Abkhaz ‘freedom fighters’ had crossed on my heels. They were out there somewhere and they wanted blood – my blood. Moreover, this was their hunting ground – they knew it far better than me.
The light drizzle trickling down my neck did not improve my mood. But at least my boots were sound. Be positive. Be thankful summer is here and the forecast promises a glorious day to come. Life is a lottery, play it to the full. Sukhumi and its beaches are only a few miles away; the sea is warm – all you have to do is to move yourself out of here.
Press on to the tree-lined ridge up ahead. Dawn could not be far away. I clawed my way rapidly up the immediate slope like a cat with its eye on an overweight pigeon.
Enough moonlight penetrated through occasional gaps in the cloud for me to leave the path to my enemies. Wherever possible, I made use of the meagre cover, pausing every now and then to listen for signs of anyone in my vicinity. Not a sound, only the steady drip of moisture from the trees. But this was no place to get careless.
Odd, I could now make out that there were two ridges. The ground dipped slightly before rising to the main ridge which filled the sky line. My map had shown no such a feature.
‘Must be too far west,’ I confided to a nervous squirrel making a mad scramble to the nearest tree.
Nearing the lower ridge, I slowed down, determined to avoid stepping on fallen twigs. Luck was with me. Down in the hollow, I glimpsed a solitary figure leaning against a giant oak. He remained motionless but alert, clutching his Kalashnikov and staring expectantly down the path.
His tattered camouflage uniform puzzled me for a moment – not Georgian, certainly not an elite Russian unit, though his weapon was of the latest design and far superior in killing power to my little Browning. Then, I remembered where I had come across something similar – he had to be a Chechen. I had been briefed that the Abkhaz separatists had the support not only of Russia but of Chechen and Ingush terrorists.
Was he alone? It seemed unlikely. Easy enough to imagine a whole phalanx of watchers in the woods – Kalashnikovs at the ready – tucked away out of sight. Perhaps the tannoy had not been just bravado. One way or another, they did not mean me to go any further.
That way lays fear – the stuff of nightmares. I had no time now for such weakness. I thought of the twisted remains of the torture victims I had glimpsed – unforgettable images – pure horror. Was that what they had in mind for me?
Use your initiative. Let this one enjoy a peaceful night and a hearty breakfast. Make a detour. I had no quarrel with him – no evidence to suggest that he had been involved in the atrocities.
But fate intervened. A sudden puff of wind; a gap in the cloud cover – and there I stood silhouetted in the moonlight not thirty yards from him. Careless of me, comes of letting my mind wander from the serious business of survival. He shouted something at me in a dialect which I could not understand. That focused my full attention.
I gave the thumbs up sign and turned to go, but he barked a command and motioned me towards him with the muzzle of his weapon. Tricky; field craft has always let me down.
Putting a finger to my lips and smiling amiably, I stumbled towards him. If that was what he wanted, so be it – besides, I needed that Kalashnikov. All that shouting must have alerted the villagers.
My right hand eased the throwing knife which nestles in the small of my back out of its sheath. All that training made its delivery automatic – the slightest hesitation would have been fatal for me.
The Chechen only realized what was happening as the knife struck home. His eyes registered a mixture of shock and betrayal as they stared, transfixed with horror, straight into mine. He slumped to the ground so quietly with no more than a gurgling gasp that it took me a moment to appreciate that he was dead.
I retrieved the knife and confiscated the gun and all his ammunition. Could be useful, but my primary objective remained to get away – not to fight a war of revenge. It is best not to try and police the world.
Two blackbirds began to trill high on the oak tree, unconcerned at the killing. They were the first echoes of the dawn chorus as seemingly every bird within hearing strove to out-sing the others.
If only I could emulate their carefree attitude, but soon the mist would be burned off by the sun. Already, visibility was improving - far too fast for my liking. I needed to hurry, but equally to avoid any more watchers lurking behind the trees.
Voices drifted up to me from behind – could be as many as a dozen men. Impossible to tell, but it sounded as though they had found their comrade and knew his killer must be close-by. Now, I knew fear. What chance had I against so many – men desperate to preserve the secret of their atrocity and thirsting for revenge? They would show no mercy.
‘Don’t panic. That way you die.’ If only I could reach the higher ridge without being seen - only fifty yards now. So near. It had to be worth a try. I planned my approach and waited for the cloud to thicken. This is it. Go for it. Go – go – go.
As I reached the crest, the cloud broke and a sliver of crimson sun revealed a broad valley spread out in front of me with cattle grazing in the fields. Could that be utopia? The cawing of crows circling overhead destroyed any such illusion. They seemed to me to be devils hungering for the flesh of those about to die. Could that be me?
But I was not done yet. The assault rifle was real and so were the clips of ammunition and the blood on the strap. Enough to scare off a few blood crazed villagers.
Moving with extreme caution through the last fringe of trees, I scraped out a hide in the bracken and settled down to examine the surrounding terrain. No more than ten yards in front of me, the undergrowth ended abruptly as the land fell away devoid of cover.
Eerie how quiet everything had become – almost sinister, as if creation was holding its breath waiting to see what I would do next.
A twig snapped close-by – and another nearer, followed by a whispered curse. I froze, straining to hear in which direction they were moving, but rewarded only by the rustle of leaves in the breeze. They had stopped. They must be quartering the landscape inch by inch for me. My enemies were closing in. I had killed their comrade and now they were coming for me; the moment of truth.
‘You’re as well armed as they are, and a damned sight better trained,’ I reminded myself. ‘Merge into the vegetation, become invisible.’ Easy enough in the half light, but what happens when the sun rises higher and drives away the shadows?
My sharp eyes made out the outline of two figures lying in ambush where the path emerged into the valley. They cradled Kalashnikovs as if expecting me to be flushed out of the woods. Was it my imagination, or did they look more like marksmen than villagers? I looked again. Their uniforms were different. These were Georgian troops; these were the men to settle scores with the murderers besieging me. But were there enough of them?
The tannoy – much nearer now – spoke again in slow measured tones: ‘You’re surrounded, English. You surrender now. We give you this last chance – put you on trial. How do you say?’ and my tormentor laughed a harsh mirthless laugh.
That laugh made me angry. I rechecked my weapon – the magazine was full, perhaps ninety rounds. They would be enough to dent the enthusiasm of my pursuers. No hurry. Why be in a hurry to die? Perhaps they would betray the positions where they were skulking if I did absolutely nothing.
Be fatalistic about it – either they died or I did. The torture victims surely decided that issue in my favour. Their souls seemed to scream at me that the men, who goaded me with their tannoy, were the very ones responsible for the crime and that I had the means and the duty to avenge them. ‘To hell with the rules of engagement, set by far-away politicians,’ I muttered. ‘What do they know of these monsters who would show no mercy to me?’
As the mist cleared, I examined the escarpment around me for the slightest clue to the whereabouts of my enemies – danger fizzed and sparked all around. Once I pressed the trigger, a dozen weapons would instantly reply. I needed a solid earth bank at my back and quickly found one.
A movement in the bracken close at hand – too close for comfort. Was I certain? There it came again. They were preparing to rush me. ‘No time for niceties,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Here they come.’ Two short bursts settled that initiative. Now, shift to a new position fast, keeping below the lip of the ridge. Made it; reload.
Pandemonium up above as the pursuit gathered to rush my previous position. I took several of them in the firefight which followed. Now show yourself Mr. Tannoy. I was the hunter this time.
‘Best to leave the village to the Georgians’, I told my reflection shimmering in a pool where I paused to drink. The haunted expression in its eyes unnerved me. After such a hard night, my duty was to vanish, find Sergei and report – Abkhazia was rapidly getting out of control. I would head for the capital, Sukhumi, but what would I find there?
CHAPTER 2
THE CAULDRON OF HATE
‘Let them hate, so long as they fear.’ (Lucius Accius)
Desperate to avoid pursuit, I walked to Sukhumi – a long but pleasant enough walk on a summer’s day for someone fearful of what he would find on arrival. I had been thoroughly briefed about the place.
In Soviet times, the town had been an idyllic holiday resort where several leading Muscovites had built splendid villas with magnificent views overlooking the Black Sea and the mountains. It boasted its own airport and a direct rail link to Moscow. The subtropical climate, palm trees, the beaches and botanical garden attracted visitors in their hundreds – though the place lacked some of the grandeur of Sochi a hundred miles to the west.
But Sukhumi was much more than a holiday centre. It served as a port exporting tangerines and other locally grown produce; it provided a rail junction of some importance with an imposing station; it housed research institutes including a laboratory involved in the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Moreover, it became the capital of the Abkhaz Soviet Socialist Republic and achieved a population of over 110,000 of whom, unsurprisingly, the majority was Georgian.
On the break-up of the Soviet Union, Sergei and his friends wanted independence from Georgia for Abkhazia. Rioting in 1989 developed into a siege with daily shelling and air strikes, culminating in a massacre and full scale ethnic cleansing of the Georgians on the 27th September 1993. The result – a town in ruins and a population of less than 45,000 of whom few are Georgian.
So what would I find? My briefing suggested that there had been some reconstruction but no one seemed sure how successful it had been. Russia had deployed railway troops to restore the rail link. What effect would this have had?
Rumour had it that after the murder of the mayor, local politicians lost interest in running Sukhumi. Someone had to take charge and Moscow filled the gap by drafting in former KGB/FSB officers with the necessary protection from its security services. I wondered how that went down with Sergei, or indeed the Georgians who claim Abkhazia is under Russian military occupation.
The town proved to be in far worse shape than even I had expected. People still lived on the lower floors of those high-rise apartment buildings which remained habitable, but in many cases the upper stories had become charred wrecks open to the sky. A surprising number of buildings stood empty with their fronts blown out and windows smashed. The locals seemed devastated, as though they had just learned of the latest killings – but then, perhaps they had.
My cover as a holidaymaker seemed sadly inappropriate – the beaches were empty, even the bars lacked any sign of jollity. They had become places for serious drinking and a fair proportion of the occupants looked to be drunk.
I found one of the few hotels which remained open and with some difficulty contacted ‘Jane’. ‘The situation here could hardly be worse,’ I told her, ‘normal life no longer functions.’ She listened gravely and authorized me to contact the Russians.
* * *
A few phone calls, a good deal of frustration and I struck gold - Kristina Zentrovska, a tall, imposing FSB officer (formerly KGB) who prided herself on her fitness. I knew Kris who had assisted me on one of my previous escapades.
‘Ah. It’s you. I wondered if it might be.’ she beamed as she walked into reception. ‘What name are you travelling under today?’
That friendly deep voice brought back memories. ‘Just call me John,’ I said sternly, remembering that I had registered under a pseudonym. She winked - a disguised wink that might or might not have been real.
‘Well, just call me John, you really do choose the most inconvenient time to call. It’s not safe around here especially after dark. I’ve got some men outside who’ll look after things, but you’d better move to my compound on the sea front. We’ll have dinner together and you can tell me what you’re doing.’
I told her about the village massacre and she immediately reported it to her headquarters. That more or less convinced me that the Russians were not behind the outrage and encouraged me to seek her assistance in tracing Sergei, who I pretended had met me on my previous travels.
‘That may not be difficult,’ she smiled. ‘His friend Anna Latoya is due to speak here in Sukhumi tomorrow afternoon. I can’t guarantee he’ll be there, but she should know his whereabouts. I’ll come with you. We like to keep up to date with local politics.’
* * *
Kris and I arrived in the market square just as a local speaker started to introduce Anna who was clearly something of a celebrity. He glanced nervously at the crowd and fumbled with his notes.
‘There could be trouble,’ Kris whispered. ‘No wonder he’s nervous. I recognise Georgian security services mingling around us.’ She drew me away to one side. ‘We’ll see just as well from here.’
Loud cheers as Anna came forward and began to speak. From the first defiant toss of the head, her performance held her audience riveted as she used her skills to lift their mood. She spoke with conviction and feeling – even certain arrogance, gradually inflaming mass hysteria. I began to feel uncomfortable as the noise level grew more and more intense.
She wore a golden yellow sweater and stood silhouetted against the sun, making it difficult to see her face. Each time she raised her arms and voice to a crescendo, she looked like a high priestess at a pagan ceremony.
Easy to recognize the signs as she worked up to her frequent climaxes: the increasing use of the word ‘comrades’, the rise in the pitch and volume of the voice ultimately to a near scream, the uplifting arms, the toss of the head, and the predictable reaction of the crowd who yelled their enthusiasm.
But how could she justify the misuse of patriotic slogans for which thousands had fought and died? How dare she corrupt the American Declaration of Independence which she used to calm the crowd after her more inflammatory outbursts?
Lowering her voice, speaking slowly and nodding her head to convey sincerity, she proclaimed at five minute intervals: ‘Never forget comrades, all men are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
The pursuit of happiness did not seem to have made much progress, judging by the state of Sukhumi and the right to life clearly did not extend to Georgians. I decided that I had heard enough of Anna’s hypocrisy.
She ranted on with her rabble rousing, but I sensed that something was amiss. The audience began to melt away - no more than three hundred people remained. The cheers were more muted, except for a handful of stalwarts around the platform. A boo; I heard booing – not loud, but booing none the less.
A small group of men were gathering in the street behind me. More men approaching – occasionally they indulged in restrained applause, occasionally muttered into their lapels. Anna shouted on, oblivious to any threat.
Kris nudged me: ‘Time to go. Captain Yusuf – Georgian Special forces – is here. Something’s up.’
A steward spoke to Anna who reacted at once. ‘Long live the power of the people. Dosvidanya.’ She gave a wave and hurriedly left the platform, racing away with her entourage in three four-wheel drive trucks.
CHAPTER 3
THE TANKS
Bang. Bang. Two thunderous explosions in quick succession shattered the silence of the night. The bed shook, a tumbler wobbled off the coffee table and smashed on the tiled floor, and the window pane shattered. Frankly, I have an aversion to such things, especially in the middle of the night.
I rushed into Kris’ room as she stirred sleepily, then sat up and began to shout. No use. My hearing had gone. Utterly disorientated, I rushed back and threw on some clothes. My throwing knives – I strapped them on, not caring whether anyone saw. My rucksack was already packed with essentials – I keep it that way.
No question but it was time to move out. The fire alarm added its clamour to the pandemonium outside our door. My hearing must be coming back. That cheered me up.
‘Come on Kris. That was a bomb, a bomb. Do you hear me? We have to go – right now.’
‘Steady, John. The explosion was on the far side of the building.’ True enough, but I watched in astonishment as a burst of tracer arced out from a Russian small guided missile ship moving in towards us at speed through the shallow waters of the bay.
‘That’s one of ours,’ she reminded me. ‘You’re with me and I do have back up. This isn’t the first time the Georgians have tried to create mayhem. But we aren’t leaving; you can tell your people that.’
Breaking glass – screams from the corridor. I flung open the bedroom door – chaos. People were rushing about frantically in all directions, shouting and bumping into one another in their panic. Lumps of plaster rained down from the ceiling.
I pulled Kris none too gently into an abandoned room away from the warship. Clothes, discarded by the previous occupants, lay scattered all over the bed. She glared at me, but said nothing.
Suddenly, a terrible explosion ripped through the building, and glass flew everywhere. I collapsed on the carpet, hit on the side of the face. Somehow, Kris escaped with a few scratches.
She bent over me as I lay dazed, struggling to sit up and regain my balance, blood oozing from my wounds. Her eyes softened. ‘Why are you here,’ she said? ‘Is this your friend Sergei’s doing?’
Do not react – say nothing. I could see that she did not believe my denials. Take a couple of deep breaths to stay in control - quite an achievement. ‘Be careful what you touch,’ I groaned. ‘There’s glass in my face.’ Slivers of razor sharp glass, some large enough to cut off a man’s head, lay scattered all over the room.
‘The door’s half off its hinges,’ she gasped grimly, her accent more pronounced than usual. ‘We have a saying: the black flower of death is flourishing all around us.’
When I crept back to the window, three Russian soldiers lay face down in a pool of blood. Two armoured personnel carriers raced up and a dozen Georgian soldiers brandishing Kalashnikovs deployed in front of the building. Kris bit her lip so hard that it bled, her eyes blazed with rage.
‘Get down,’ I snapped. Time to be somewhere else – the professionals had arrived.
The rumble of distant gunfire dispelled any notion that hostilities had ceased. Black smoke wafted through the smashed window, its acrid smell all pervading.
Kris mobile rang. She listened intently. ‘I’ve been ordered to save myself as best I can and keep in touch. The attack took us completely by surprise.’ She looked shame faced about it – such things are not supposed to happen in the FSB.
‘Listen,’ I whispered. ‘There’s not a sound outside – no traffic, no people, no shooting. The corridor’s deserted. Let’s slip back and collect our essentials.’
Back in her own room, she found some tweezers and with great care began to remove the glass from my face. At least she still had some compassion for the sufferings of a fellow human being – not that she had shown much tender loving care along with the quick efficiency.
A strange roaring sound from the coast road to the south-west thrust itself on our attention. We could see nothing to explain it. The beach baked in the heat, but not a soul took advantage of it.
‘Sounds like a convoy of tanks,’ I suggested ‘and look your missile ship is coming back.’ As I spoke, it launched its first missile – provoking heavy gunfire from an unseen source close-by.
The whole area began filling with Georgian tanks, manoeuvring into defensive positions among the ruins. A dozen or so surrounded our building. I swore; no way out.
Kris peered over my shoulder at the tanks. ‘Look, they’re planning to take over our compound.’ She sat down heavily on the bed. ‘They’re not going to find it so easy to dispose of me.’
Her reactions continued to amaze me. I saw her glance at me but hastily look away as if consumed by loathing. I had better take care. The coincidence of my arrival just before the Georgians seemed to be leading her to all the wrong conclusions.
My attention was riveted on three specks in the sky hurtling straight towards us. ‘Get down on the floor under the bed,’ I yelled. This time she readily obeyed. No time to join her. The jets were diving straight at us. Flinging myself flat, I smiled encouragingly at her.
What the hell was she doing? I stared in disbelief at the pistol in her hand. She checked the bullets and carefully slipped off the safety catch with the determined expression of someone readying herself to use it. Would she really shoot me, or were the Georgians her intended target?
In an agonizing flash, I realized that the care she took with the safety catch could only be to prevent me hearing the click. She took a deep breath and gripped the wrist holding the pistol tightly with the other hand. For an instant our eyes met, but her far-away expression gave no hint to her thoughts.
‘Are you OK?’ I enquired, pretending not to have noticed anything suspicious. But now a throwing knife was balanced in my right hand. No reply.