They had rounded the southern end of the lake, well wide of the shore, then turned to encounter the rising ground between the two lakes. Waterford and his men were now above and behind the Russians. The surrounding trees were all but stripped of snow. The wind hurled itself between the massed trunks, flinging the snow horizontally before it. It was impossible to obtain any sighting of the Russians without the use of the thermal imager which was capable, on its narrowest field of view, of picking up a human body's emissions of warmth at a range of a thousand metres.
'We're going to have to get closer,' Waterford continued with a seeming lack of enthusiasm. 'You and me. Brief your men to stay put. I'll wait for you, ducky.'
Brooke slipped off into the murky, snow-blown light, crouching just below the crest of the rise as he hurried from tree to tree. The shore of the lake was two hundred yards away. Visibility was little more than fifty — yes, Brooke had already vanished, after pausing to speak to the first two-man SBS unit.
Grenade launcher, he thought. Or mortar. Even an RPG-7 rocket launcher. If they had all or any of those, and they well might, coupled with a laser rangefinder, then at the first sign of trouble they could put the Firefox on the scrap-heap. Their weaponry was more important than their numbers, their knowledge, even the radio with which they had undoubtedly communicated with Moscow.
He waited for seven minutes, then saw Brooke emerge from the snow-haze between the firs, and move towards him in a crouch. He slid into a prostrate position next to Waterford.
'Well?'
'OK. Sergeant Dawson's got our friends on the other imager. His count is thirteen, of course.' Brooke smiled. His breath was still hurrying from him. 'They're to give us fifteen minutes, no more. Dawson's doing some pinpointing for the others. I told them I wanted the radio operator alive, if possible. OK?'
Waterford nodded. 'That's about it. He's more likely to talk than the officer or the sergeants. OK, let's go.'
Waterford raised his head, and closed the thermal imager to his face once more. Satisfied, he slung the device at his back and moved the Heckler & Koch caseless rifle to greater accessibility across his chest. He gripped its bulky, almost shapeless form with both hands, climbed over the crest of the rise and began to descend. Brooke moved a few paces behind and to his left. They slipped from tree to tree as quickly and silently as they could. Waterford counted the yards they gained towards the shore, waiting for the moment of visibility. Twice he stopped to check the images revealed through the MEL device. Strange, firelit, patchy ghosts, forms that danced and wavered and changed shape.
He was suspicious of a small group hunched around each other, but not around any central image. No fire, no heater brewing coffee or tea — that was fifty yards away to the left of the group on which he focused. The radio might be there. In the freezing air around each body, each patch of warmth, each heater and cigarette, produced an image. But, in the middle of the group that attracted his attention, there was nothing.
Waterford believed that a grenade launcher or mortar sat, barrel elevated, in the centre of the three shifting flame-shapes he could see through the imager. If such a weapon was there, then it wouid have to be destroyed; its operators killed.
He motioned Brooke forward, pointing out his exact direction. Then he followed. They had covered perhaps a hundred yards of forward movement. Within another forty or fifty yards at the most, he would be able to see them. They would be able to see him. Ahead, Brooke moved with greater caution, with something almost comic in the way he lifted and placed his feet, held his rifle, hunched his shoulders. A cartoon robber. Waterford followed the same pattern of movement. Then Brooke suddenly stopped and whirled behind the trunk of a fir, rifle almost vertical, hand extended to warn Waterford. Waterford ducked behind the nearest tree.
Lower down the slope, the trees were heavy with snow. The wind was less fierce and insistent. Each time he exhaled, his breath moved upwards for almost a second before it was whipped away. He peered round the trunk. Brooke waved him forward. He scampered the few yards separating them.
'Well?'
'Laughter from the tea-party,' Brooke replied. 'Didn't you hear it?' Waterford shook his head. 'Trick of the wind. Catching the noise, I looked. Saw one figure at least. Off over there.' He indicated the gloom to their left and ahead of them with the barrel of his Armalite rifle. Waterford strained to see further into the soft, shifting fuzziness caused by the light and the blowing snow. Something moved, less distinct than the flame-shapes he could see through the imager. He put the MEL against his face. Yes. Two-no, three soldiers, at a brew-up. The thermal image of the heater was clear between them. The mugs of tea or coffee moved like lumps of burning coal. Blue, red, yellow. He swung the imager. A single figure, almost directly ahead, then two more, then the group of three around a cold, empty space, then paler, more distant images. One figure moving, corning closer. Probably the officer.
'To our right,' Waterford said. 'See anything? There — ' He pointed his arm like a sight. Brooke craned forward, then shook his head. 'OK, let me get closer with "What the Butler Saw" here, and then you move up behind me when I give the signal.' He checked on the moving man, and on the.group of three, then stepped from behind the tree. Ninety yards, no more than that now. He crouched and ran, dodging from tree to tree, pausing behind each trunk to listen for noises. Snatch of laughter or jocular abuse from the tea-party, a muffled cough into a mitten.
He rechecked the moving man. Closer, pursuing an orderly, steady progress. The officer. Now, pausing at the group, his flame-shape bending over something -
Had to be. Had to be rocket or grenade launcher, or a mortar. Laser rangefinder. Goodbye, MiG-31. Just in case, Waterford supposed, anything intolerably wrong occurred, they would have the option of-preventing the aircraft's removal. Did he hear their voices then, just as he turned to wave Brooke forward — ?
No. Nothing. He pointed the MEL imager back towards the rise, scanning along it, picking up Sergeant Dawson's kneeling, burning shape, using another MEL imager. Dawson would be watching him. He would see the first shots fired. Bright, burning blobs leaving one flame-shape, entering another. Strangely, though, the change in body heat of anyone killed would not show for some time.
Brooke looked and listened. He shook his head.
'Four of them now. No more than seventy yards. Next tree should do it. Ready?' Brooke nodded. They hurried to another fir, less than ten yards ahead of them. Brooke looked once more, and nodded.
'What is it? Can you see what they've got there?'
Brooke was silent for a time, staring through the short, stubby barrel of his PPE Pocketscope. The light conditions made its use necessary, though it was most effective as a night sight. He lowered the instrument and said, 'It looks like one of their ACS thirty millimetre jobs.'
'Effective range, eight hundred metres. Enough. Anything else?'
'Laser rangefinder, I'm pretty sure.'
'Right. Let's take them all out. Who knows, we might get the rest of them to surrender if we get the officer as well? You — work round that way. I'll outflank them on the other side. Wait until I start firing before you open up.'
'OK.'
Brooke moved off immediately, working his way from tree to tree, threading his path inwards and ahead, towards the shore of the lake. When he was little more than a shadow, Waterford raised the MEL Imager. Brooke's form burned in bright colours. He swung the instrument. Yes, Brooke was close enough. He moved away from the tree, working to his right for perhaps fifty yards until he was satisfied that he had chosen the optimum position.' Immediately he had finished firing, he would make for the position of the radio and its operator. The man was perhaps thirty or forty yards from him. He used the MEL to check. Yes, no more than forty. A straight run. Eight or nine seconds — say ten. How many Russian words can you say in ten seconds?