‘Box him up and send him back,’ decided Max brutally, his narrow, bloodshot eyes still on the late Sergeant Zaytsev. ‘If you find any of his cronies was involved, do the same for them.’ He looked down at the bundle on the ground. ‘He’s lucky he’s dead,’ he decided at last. ‘If he’d caused all this trouble and was still breathing, I’d have throttled the stupid durak with my own bare hands.’ And he obviously meant it.
‘That was a point well made,’ said Richard as he and Robin sat in the Granville Lodge Hotel’s twenty-four-hour bistro, nursing cups of coffee and waiting for the adrenaline to work its way out of their systems.
‘What point?’ asked Robin guardedly.
‘If you put on the costume you need to know the dance …’ Some time ago Richard had planned to disguise himself as Ngoboi, hoping to perform a rescue. Only the fact that he didn’t know the complex ritual steps of the god’s magic dance stopped him. Someone else had put the disguise on instead. Richard had gone in after them a little later. In a Russian T80 Main Battle tank.
Robin nodded. ‘It’s part of a wider point, though, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Ivan’s boys need proper intelligence. In-depth briefing from someone who really knows what he’s talking about.’
‘Someone who isn’t part of the situation. Someone they’ll listen to.’
‘It can’t be Kebila or Caleb Maina. They’re tainted in Russian eyes.’
‘Who else do we know, then? Who else can we suggest?’ mused Richard.
‘What was the name of the man who commanded the squad that went in alongside you and the tank when I managed to talk you out of dressing up as Ngoboi and going in undercover the last time we crossed swords with the Army of Christ?’ asked Robin.
‘By the grace of God you did …’ Richard nodded.
‘Hmmm. But what was his name, Richard? What was his name?’
‘Huge guy. Really good commander. Steady as a rock. Moro? No … Draco? That’s not it. But a top-flight soldier all the same — just the man we need to keep the peace between the two warring factions if we can get him. I know,’ said Richard insouciantly, ‘let’s go to bed and think on it. Maybe something’ll come up in the night …’
Robin tilted her head a little sideways. The corners of her grey eyes crinkled into a knowing smile. ‘You’re still full of it, aren’t you, sailor?’
‘Adrenaline?’ he asked innocently. ‘I certainly am! How about you?’
‘Fizzing,’ she admitted. ‘And this coffee hasn’t helped at all. How on earth are we ever going to get to sleep?’
‘I’m sure we’ll think of something. Let’s go.’
Richard and Robin attended a brief planning meeting at eleven the next morning; the earliest a clearly hungover Max could manage. ‘I’ve sent the lot of them back,’ he snarled. ‘Those damned RUS clowns were more trouble than they were worth.’
‘And that confrontation has shown us that it would be better to move the men for the time being,’ added Felix. ‘What’s left of Ivan’s group would be better aboard Stalingrad with the Russian captain and crew while Kebila has agreed to move his men on to Caleb Maina’s Volgograd. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of losing a dozen or so RUS men.’
‘And to make matters worse,’ snarled Max, switching the dyspeptic beam of his red-rimmed gaze to Ivan, ‘you were relying on those RUS masturbators to get your men ready for the jungle. Now what are you going to do?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ inserted Richard smoothly, ‘Robin and I came up with something after we got back last night …’
Mako
‘You want me to go easy?’ whispered Ivan. But only Richard and Mako heard him.
‘No need,’ answered Mako, like distant thunder. ‘Give it your best shot.’
Both men were squared off, facing each other in the centre of Stalingrad’s massive storage bay. They were both stripped to the waist. And, as well as Richard and — more distantly — Robin, Max and Felix, they were surrounded by what remained of Ivan’s Spetsnaz command.
Mako was even bigger than Richard remembered him. His shaven head looked like a black bowling ball. The muscles of his upper torso seemed to have been carved in anthracite. And, of the two men, he was by far the more massive. Even his neck, short as it was, seemed thicker than Ivan’s thigh. Richard thought he heard the word ‘Gorilla’ — the same in Russian and English — but the tone was, if anything, awestruck.
Mako stood like a mountain — like Karisoke itself — and waited. He seemed calm. Relaxed. Neither fazed nor bothered by his position or his opponent. He oozed a quiet confidence that Richard, for one, would not have felt for a moment had their places been reversed.
Then, an instant before Ivan attacked, in that micron of time when his eyes dilated, his breath hissed in and his muscles tensed, the decision made, Mako struck. He moved incredibly swiftly. Ivan, mentally committed if not quite physically so, was too late to adapt his move and when the two bodies crashed together, he was the one who span away, barely able to keep his feet. There was no science to that first encounter — no hand-, arm- or foot-work. No chops, punches or kicks. Mako’s charge simply slammed them hard against each other like a pair of charging bulls. The sound of the impact echoed around the massive space, extended by a kind of gasp from the Spetsnaz men.
Ivan danced back a little unsteadily. Mako seemed to settle into himself again, statue-still — except that he shook out his arms, easing and relaxing the massive muscles, opening and closing his fists. Richard noticed with some surprise that Mako was wearing a ring; what looked like a plain gold band on his wedding finger. Richard had always assumed the man was married to the service. And even if he wasn’t, the glittering circle seemed somehow out of place. Out of character.
Ivan came in again at once. He had taken less than a step before Mako erupted into motion. But this time the Russian had been feinting and the massive African was met by the sole of a left boot that would have flattened his already battered nose if he hadn’t caught it in those enormous fists and twisted it viciously. Ivan kicked his other leg high at once, using Mako’s grip as a fulcrum, and swung his right boot at the black cranium. Mako saw it coming and looked down. His head sank between his shoulders like a turtle’s into its shell. The bull-thick black neck seemed to vanish. The boot skidded off the top of the bald dome and Mako let go, leaping back as Ivan landed lightly and span into position once again.
‘Hey,’ rumbled Mako in an amused, friendly voice which carried effortlessly to the farthest corner of the place. And in fluent, if American accented, Russian. ‘You give ballet lessons, Senior Lieutenant?’
The laugh that went round the audience was one of genuine amusement — and suddenly there was an air of excited expectation.
Mako threw himself forward and battle royal was joined.
An hour later, Richard, Robin, Max and Felix were in Stalingrad’s otherwise deserted mess, gathered round a table, drinking coffee, when Kebila, Mako and Ivan came in. Kebila was, as always, in his perfectly pressed colonel’s uniform, complete with cap and swagger-stick — both of which were tucked firmly under his arm. His cap badge, like his pips and collar-tabs, brightly proclaimed his rank, nationality and allegiance.
Both of the others were dressed in fatigue cargo pants and sleeveless green vests. Neither was wearing any badges of rank but both wore berets. Ivan’s was deep red and Mako’s sage green. The cap badge on the front of Ivan’s consisted of gold leaves, red star and hammer and sickle. It was the old-fashioned GRU Spetsnaz badge on a beret awarded to only the fittest, toughest half-dozen men in the whole Spetsnaz organization each year. Richard had made it his business to find out about that beret. Mako’s badge was less easy to see but it looked like a dagger shaft going into a green shield. American Special Forces. That kind of green beret. The pair of them were well matched.