We were sitting facing the brass on two rows of chairs, three and five. When I glanced round, I saw everyone nod quickly.
The CO's tension had communicated itself to the team.
"Right, then." The CO cleared his throat.
"Another element has been added to the operation. The training of Tiger Force will go down as planned, but as from today that will serve as cover for a new main task. The first priority of Operation Nimrod is now to plant two compact nuclear devices in strategic positions, where they can be detonated by satellite signal if or when such action is deemed necessary."
Silence. For several seconds nobody moved. I felt as if I'd been skewered to my seat. When the CO continued, I seemed to be hearing him from a distance.
"We realise, of course, that this action is not in line with overt Western policy. The initiative has come from the United States Defense Department. For some time they've been looking at the concept of infiltrating nuclear devices into the former Soviet Union. Now Operation Nimrod is about to provide an opportunity. Any questions so far?"
"You mean you're expecting us to plant nuclear devices?" I went.
"Just that," the CO replied.
"What under the bloody Kremlin, I suppose?"
"Exactly. One of them, anyway."
"Boss you can't be serious."
"I am, Geordie. It sounds outrageous, I know. But I am.
Totally serious."
I felt myself growing angry.
"I thought we were supposed to be helping the poor bastards."
"We are. In the short term, we're on their side. We'll go through with the training programme as planned, and I hope we'll do them a service. The new phase of the operation is a long-term measure designed to keep the lid on things in the event of a take-over by criminal elements."
"That's one way of putting it," I said.
"You keep the lid on things by blowing the whole fucking place sky high."
"Geordie!" The CO's voice sharpened.
"Get hold of yourself The Regiment has received this request from the Pentagon, via the British Governnment. We've agreed to carry it out."
Already I regarded Sasha as a friend, a comrade in arms, who needed all the help I could give him. Now I was going to have to double-cross him in everything I said or did. All my friendly actions were going to be undermined by treachery. Then there was Anna. Even though we'd only met once, I sensed that I could work with her. From day one I'd be deceiving her too.
I heard myself asking, "Does our embassy in Moscow know about this?"
"No." The Boss shook his head emphatically.
"Not a thing.
They'll never hear of it."
Immediately I thought, More people to deceive: the Charge d'Affaires, for a start.
"Christ!" I glanced at Whinger and saw he was looking pretty sick. I looked on along the line of faces Rick, Mal, Pavarotti, Dusty hoping for back-up, but they all wore blank, puzzled expressions.
"These devices," I said.
"Are you talking about suitcase bombs the sort of things that were developed for taking out bridges or dams?"
"A modern version," the CO conceded.
"Slightly bigger, and very much more powerful."
"How are we supposed to handle them? I mean, are they portable, or what?"
"More or less." The CO gestured to his left.
"Mr. Laidlaw is going to give you an initial briefing."
Laidlaw stood up to expound. Plump and rubicund, with dark hair slicked back and a big gut bulging against his doublebreasted, navy pin-stripe suit, he looked a bit of a character, a man who enjoyed a glass or two. Yet his manner was anything but frivolous: "Gentlemen," he said in a thick, fruity Scottish accent, 'for simplicity's sake I shall refer to the devices by initials. In the trade they're known as CNDs, compact nuclear devices. Ironic that the same initials stood for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which some of you may remember.
Nevertheless, those are the initials that we tend to use.
"The two CNDs you will be placing in position weigh approximately a hundred and fifty kilograms apiece. However, each one comes in two parts the size and shape of large suitcases.
One component weighs eighty kilos, the other seventy. Thus each component can be carried without much difficulty by two men. Easier with four. The device is primed by fitting the two halves together. It is then connected to a smaller unit, a radio receiver. The whole is detonated by signal from a satellite in synchronous orbit."
He stopped, scanning our faces.
"Gentlemen, I can see you looking worried. May I emphasise that the chances of any CND ever being detonated in anger are extremely remote. The devices are being planted purely as a deterrent, which the West will use as a form of control, should the situation in Russia deteriorate to a level which threatens the international community. Think of them as an insurance policy, not as weapons of aggression.
Seeing Johnny shift on his chair, he prompted, "Yes?"
"These bombs. How do they get to Moscow?"
"You'll take them with you when you fly in."
"Where are they now?"
Laidlaw looked at his watch.
"They're due into Lakenheath any time now. They should reach Hereford this evening."
I was finding it hard to believe that this whole spiel wasn't some crazy test, sprung on us to gauge our reactions.
"How do we know where to site them, once we get there?" I asked.
"Our friends in the Pentagon have got everything worked out for you. I'll give you a quick idea from these maps. Of course, you'll have detailed diagrams which you can memo rise but these will show you the general idea."
He bent over an open lap-top which stood on the table and punched a couple of keys. The big VDU beside him flickered into life and even before he began to explain the coloured diagram that came up on the screen I knew where we were: on the bank of the Moscow River, opposite the Kremlin wall, practically at the spot where we'd had the showdown with the mugger.
"For security reasons," Laidllaw was saying, 'as from now, the devices will be referred to only by code names. CND 1 is Apple, CND 2 Orange. All right? Now this diagram shows the site for Apple. We're right in the centre of Moscow. Here you have the Moscow River, marked blue, flowing west to east. The river at this point is a hundred and five metres wide. This, here, is the south wall of the Kremlin, running parallel with the river. The interior of the Kremlin lies to the north. Alongside the north bank of the river is a road, then there's a strip of grass. The distance from the water to the Kremlin wall is seventy-seven metres.
"Fortunately for your purpose, the ground beneath the city is honeycombed by tunnels. Not sewage tunnels like in London, because Moscow works on a system of relatively small-bore pipes, which are cleared by high-pressure water jets. Of course, there's the Metro the underground with tunnels on many different levels, as in London." He stopped to clear his throat, and continued in a strange, slightly theatrical voice.
"But there are also various other tunnels, less well known. For instance, there is one major and totally secret system which was built during the seventies, in the depths of the Cold War, to give party leaders an escape route from the Kremlin in the event of invasion or nuclear attack. It's very deep, and one of them's big enough to take lorries.
"At the inner end, access is by lifts from a secret terminal under the Presidium. The tunnel runs roughly here' he drew an imaginary line with his pointer 'southwards under the river, and all the way out to a site near Vnukovo Airport, twenty kilometres to the south-west. There, a complete underground city still awaits its first refugees. The place has its own supplies of food, power, water, air and so on."
He paused for effect, and saw he had us well hooked.
"More recently, in the attempted coup of ninety-three, the rebels were cornered in the White House, the parliament building. You'll all have seen TV pictures of tanks firing on it.