As for sleeping, we billeted ourselves in twos. Whinger and I shared, with the rest of the team similarly paired off. Coarse sheets and blankets had been dumped on the beds, and the water in the showers was hot. A smell of fresh emulsion paint, not unpleasant, made it clear that some hasty sprucing-up had taken place. Mal nearly went ballistic when he saw a rat disappear down a hole in the corner of the corridor, but I told him to push a Lacon box over the place and we'd deal with it in the morning.
The odd man out was Toad, whom I'd detailed to sleep with his devices in the armoury. In fact I'd told him that as long as the CNDs remained in camp, he was to stay with them day and night, except when relieved by somebody approved by me. I also told him he'd got to screw the nut and knock his running on the head for the time being, even if it meant him going short of exercise. In sum, he was to guard his charges with his life, until such time as we could transfer them to the safety of the Embassy cellar.
For our nefarious purposes, the block was brilliantly placed. It backed directly on to the edge of the training area, with no other buildings behind it, and nobody overlooking its rear entrance.
Our people would be able to slip out that way, straight down a track and into the scrubby forest. Also behind the block was parking space for several cars, so we'd have little bother loading the CND components into vehicles for transport to the Embassy.
When I realised how well sited we were, I almost changed my mind about the need to move the devices: in such favourable circumstances I thought hard about keeping Orange with us.
Then I reckoned, No: I don't fancy being out of the building all day, running the course, with those things sitting here even if Toad is in charge. Better get both of them into the Embassy until we're set up to deploy them. Thus I decided that we wouldn't wait, but would follow my original plan and move them on Sunday evening. For one thing, they'd be gone before Anna came on the scene, at 8:30 on Monday morning; and for another, I already knew from our first visit that the Moscow traffic was far lighter during the weekend than on working days.
It wasn't long before I felt sure I'd made the right decision.
With the course not due to start until Monday morning, we had all Sunday to sort ourselves out; but we'd hardly got a scratch breakfast down our necks when Steve, one of the scalies, came up to me with a face of doom and asked if he could have a word. When I asked what the problem was he jerked his head up and back, meaning, Let's go outside. So we walked out the back, into the edge of the forest, and he said, "Geordie, they've put bugs in the power points."
"Where?"
"In the signals room, and in the kitchen."
"Ah, shite! Are you sure?"
"Hundred percent. I was making a routine sweep, and they came up loud and clear. Have a listen for yourself."
Back inside, I borrowed Steve's detector kit and ran the sensor pad along the wall in the signals room. As it passed the dual power-point, a loud brrraannggg sounded in the headphones, then died away as I moved the pad on. I said nothing, but shook my head, went through to the next room, and got the same thing.
What should I do? Report the bugs to Anna in the morning?
Have a quiet word with Sasha? Say nothing?
In the open again, walking up and down, I asked Steve if he could disable the microphones without his interference being apparent.
"I suppose if I knocked one out, they might think it had just broken down. But WI did both they'd be bound to realise."
"OK, then. Knacker the one in the signals office. Break one of the connections or whatever you have to do, but leave the other.
Have you swept the signals room thoroughly?"
He nodded.
"There's only the one in there."
"Better do all the rooms the same.
Now I realised why our hosts had done so much redecorating: they'd painted over any bits of re plastering that had been needed.
The discovery unsettled me.
"I'm really disappointed," I told Whinger.
"I hoped all that was a thing of the past."
"Who are we to talk?" he said.
The truth of his remark kept me in a state of permanent unease. I confirmed to Whinger that I didn't intend to mention the bugs: we'd wait to see what happened if Steve took one out.
The day being Sunday, there were few people about on the camp, and we were left to sort ourselves out which suited us fine. There was more than enough admin and physical work to keep us busy. Sasha was in and out, making sure we had all we wanted.
It was clear that all our lads were going to have to take turns at cooking, and in mid-morning Sasha took Dusty our master chef and Mal off on a conducted tour of Balashika's shops, from which they returned effing and blinding. The so-called
Supermagazin was a disaster, and the only place they found any half-decent vegetables was in an open-air market, where locals were selling produce brought in from the country. In the Supermagazin they'd bought scabby oranges, and at the other place they had got eggs, onions, carrots, cabbages and potatoes; but still it looked as though we were going to be relying heavily on tins, packets and boil-in-the-bag meals designed for use in the field.
After lunch, under Sasha's supervision, drivers delivered two battered-looking Volgas, one mid-grey, one black, with worn tyres and rust showing through the paint where the mudguards joined the body. He explained that they were a slightly later model than his own, but similar. The grey one had 88,000 ks on the clock, the black 13,000 which obviously meant that it had been round the dial once at least When I asked if it was OK to drive around the dirt roads inside the training area, to familia rise ourselves with the vehicles, Sasha exclaimed, "Why not?"
"How about going into town?"
"Whatever you like. You've got your licences OK. But inside camp, no red-and-white bars, please."
He meant that we weren't to go through any of the safety barriers that blocked off the danger areas; but there was plenty of other space, and four of us set out for a spin. Before we left, I got Steve to run his bug-hunter over both vehicles just in case, but the result was negative, and that reassured me a little.
Nevertheless, we didn't propose to run unnecessary risks, so we took covert radios and kept the Volgas a few hundred metres apart, chatting to make sure we weren't being followed.
The cars were sluggish and noisy, with heavy steering; but even though driving them was a pain, at least we had wheels of our own. I hadn't expected such freedom: I'd imagined we would be more closely supervised. The entire training area was ringed by the concrete wall, so we were in fact enclosed. We soon found that a perimeter track skirted the inside of the wall, heading out north-eastwards in the direction of the space complex; and after a couple of ks we began to see, beyond the wall, amazingly large, white dish-aerials pointing skywards in seined ranks. Although I said nothing, I could immediately imagine why the Pentagon fancied taking that lot out.
The land was almost dead flat, with only a gentle rise and fall to relieve the monotony. Patches of pine and birch forest alternated with wide-open scrub and grass, crisscrossed by dirt tracks, reminding me of the training areas at Pirbright. Here and there a primitive wooden observation tower stuck up above the trees. Clearly the training area was well used, but two things about it made me feel reasonably secure. One was the sheer size of the landscape. In terrain as open as this it would be very difficult for anyone to watch us without our being aware of the surveillance. The other factor in our favour was the decrepit nature of the fixtures and fittings. On several of the wooden watch-towers the ladders had rungs missing, and the red-and white bafflers which Sasha had mentioned were bent and rusting. All this, we felt certain, reflected the cut-down in the Russian forces: clearly, they had nobody to do the maintenance and were generally short-staffed.