"Should have brought a torch," Whinger muttered.
"Yeah but we can hack it enough for now."
The shelter ran about thirty feet into the side of the hill and was all one space no divisions. When our eyes had adjusted to the gloom we could see that the wall at the back was like the one at the front concrete blocks but in less good nick: damp had worked its way through, cracking the mortar and producing dark stains. Pressure from the earth behind had pushed two or three of the blocks forward so that they stood proud of their neighbours.
When I ran my fingers down the wall they came away wet and smelling faintly of iron.
"What we should do is get behind the blocks and dig out a hollow," said Whinger.
"Then put the wall back up. With the blocks loose like that, it's a piece of cake."
"It would be if we didn't have to dispose of the spoil." I bent down and scuffed my hand over the floor.
"Feels like bare earth.
But the stuff coming out of the bank's bound to be a different colour."
"Yeah but who's coming in here to see it?"
"A hundred to one, nobody. But if somebody did we'd be buggered. Better to get rid of it. Let's recce a dump site outside."
Back in the open, we found an ideal place within thirty metres of the entrance: pushing through scrub, well away from the track, we nearly fell into a deep pit with gorse bushes growing over it. Sand or earth dumped through the branches would vanish into the hole, which would have taken tons and was far bigger than we needed.
"That's it, then," I said.
"When we come, it's going to be all hands to the pumps. We've got to do the whole job in one night: drop the wall, dig the recess, place the device, rebuild the wall, skim it with mud to mask the new joints, and away."
The simplicity of the task seemed to steel my resolve. As we trotted back towards the camp I realised that for the past few days I'd been postponing the insertion of Apple on the grounds that there was no hurry. Now I'd swung round to Whinger's point of view: the sooner we got both devices squared away, the better.
"You're right," I panted.
"There's no reason to hang about.
We'll go for the Kremlin tomorrow night."
TEN
We planned everything in as much detail as we could, but the timings inevitably remained untidy. I arranged with the Charge d'Affaires that we'd remove some of our stuff from the lock-up during the evening. We'd be bound to arouse suspicion if we swept into the compound at midnight; equally, it was quite possible that watchers in the Kremlin had the Embassy's entrance under continuous video surveillance from across the river if anyone saw a car emerge from the gates and vanish straight into the churchyard down the road, the forces of law and order would be on the scene within minutes. The same would apply if we attempted to move the Apple components on foot. We couldn't trudge out of the Embassy gates lugging heavy containers and struggle with them along to the churchyard: video cameras or not, somebody would be bound to notice. The only safe way of shifting the device to the old stable was to load it up, drive off, disappear for a while and then return from the opposite direction, cruising in through the gateway arch and straight past the church door.
Our earlier visits had shown that there were people about until quite late in the evening, and we reckoned that 10:00 p.m. would be a safer time to kick off than 9:00. That meant we'd have nearly an hour to kill.
For the tunnel team I'd nominated Toad, Pavarotti and myself.
Rick would man the head of the shaft: with his reasonable Russian, he might be able to bluff his way through if anyone accosted him while we were down. During our recce Whinger had stood off in the car, and this time I wanted him in command on the surface once again; but we were going to need two vehicles, because we would never fit five guys and the Apple components into one of the Volgas. That meant I had to detail Mal as our second driver, leaving only Dusty, Johnny and Pete in barracks.
I was worried by the knowledge that the guys back on the base had no vehicle in which they could come out and recover us if anything went wrong. In fact I was worried by a hell of a lot of niggling possibilities which all seemed to become probabilities as the day ground on. We'd get a puncture driving out of the Embassy gates, with Apple on board (we'd had three punctures already). We'd meet hostile natives in the churchyard. We'd drop one of the heavy components down the access shaft and wreck it. We'd crack the casing of the SCR and absorb fatal doses of radiation. We'd find the tunnel booby-trapped. We'd find the tunnel flooded along its whole length. We'd run out of oxygen while making final excavations at the site. We wouldn't be able to lift the device into its resting place. It would turn out that the two components were incompatible. The satellite wouldn't pick up signals from the SCR… Before we left I put through a call to Hereford and confirmed that we were under starter's orders. Until then I'd been economical with information about our progress. I'd reported our successful recce of the Apple site but I hadn't told anyone what we'd done with the devices. Now I simply said that it should be possible for Washington to make contact with Apple from 0200 next morning.
At last 8:00 came, and it was too late to agonise any more. I rode passenger in the black wagon, with Mal driving and Toad in the back. Whinger drove the grey car, with Rick and Pavarotti as passengers.
Unfortunately it was a still evening. The noisy gale that had blown up during the Mafia hit would have suited us fine, but tonight we had to make do without.
As we headed into town we passed one GAl team who'd set up a temporary check-point on the other side of the road: they'd got three of their little blue-and-white Gaz jeeps set out to form a funnel, and were pulling in about one driver in three. Sasha had told us that by the end of each month these traffic police were frantic for money, and imposed instant fines for any offence they could dream up as he put it: 'for documents, for speed, for lights, for breaking rules, for not having seat-belts done up.
We had our documents, we had roubles, we had dollars.
but luckily tonight there was no purge on vehicles going in our direction.
The route was familiar by now. Over the bridge, swing down on to the embankment, head west. We made one precautionary drive-past in the black car while the grey one stood off out of sight; then we came back round the block, joined forces, and both turned into the Embassy compound at 8:55.
So far, so good. But from that moment things persistently went a little bit wrong. The first shock came when, as we pulled up in the Embassy's rear yard, the Charge himself came out to greet us. I'd assumed he'd be off duty by now.
In fact Allway was harmless enough he'd obviously had a couple of drinks, and was braying in a loud, hearty voice that he'd only emerged to wish us well. But his mere presence outside the lock-up was a pain.
"How are you doing?" he boomed.
"All tickety-boo?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Getting enough to eat out there? Hope they're not starving you.
"No, no. We're fine. Just come in to pick up a couple of items of kit."
"Ah! Some of those ammunition boxes, what?"
"Those are the ones."
"Want a hand?"
"No thanks. We'll manage fine."
"Well any problems, just let me know."
"Thanks."
I thought the bastard was going back indoors, but he turned and said, "Oh, by the way, the security forces had a big success against the Mafia the other day."