By 9:00 a.m. I was back in my own OP, having filmed the summerhouse as well. My scramble around the mountainside had got me well warmed up and my fingers were nimble when it came to down-loading information from the camera into my lap-top and sending it up via the Satcom to the squadron at Kars.
Within five minutes Bill Chandler came on air to say that the quality of the pictures was excellent. He also confirmed that Orange was still transmitting from the same site, and that we had definite permission to exfil via the Russian Caucasus.
It wasn't until 11:20 that things started to happen. I got a sudden tsch, tsch in my earpiece, and there was Sasha, fired up.
"Beeg development!" he went.
"I have seen your men.
"Our lads?"
"Yes. They came from lower house into upper house."
"Out of the basement entrance?"
"Yes. Four guards bring them."
"How did they look?"
"Bad. Zheordie, I am afraid they are smashed up.
"What did you see?"
"The big man, Pavarotti his eyes are black. The small one has clothes on his hands."
"Clothes? Bandages?"
"Bandages. Yes."
"Where did the guards take them, Sasha?"
"Inside the house. Upstairs."
"The ground-floor entrance main door?"
"Yes."
"OK. Thanks. Keep watching."
I went straight through to Kars and relayed Sasha's information. Anger ran through me as I lay under my heap of pine branches. My first thought was to take the pressure off our guys by creating a diversion. A 203 grenade into one of the villa's windows would stir things up, all right. Sasha and I could drop quite a few of the home team if they came running out of the house. But a premature attack by just the two of us could well panic the Chechens and make them top their prisoners.
I spoke to Bill again and suggested what I'd been thinking.
"No go, Geordie," he replied.
"For Christ's sake take it easy.
It's great to know the guys are there, but until we've got the bomb secure, the plan must hold. They have to stick it out, and so have you.
Fuck them all, I thought savagely as I switched off. When it comes to the crunch, all senior ruperts are unfeeling bastards who don't give a stuff about losing guys.
I lay there feeling furious, but not for long.
The next development was almost worse. Shortly before 12:00 I became aware of a drone, faint at first but rapidly growing louder. Chopper, I thought. Then I caught the fluttering beat of a rotor, and a few moments later the thing came swishing and roaring so low overhead that its down draught made the roof of my OP thrash about, and I had to seize hold of some branches to stop them being blown away.
For perhaps a minute the roar persisted, as the pilot came in to land on the helipad. Then he shut his engine down and the noise fell away to a dying whine.
Sasha was already on the air.
"Zheordie helicopter in."
"Yeah. Did you see what sort?"
"Small civilian, passenger aircraft. Three to four persons. I knew Sasha couldn't see the pad from where he was, but he would get a look at the incoming party if the people walked the few yards down to the villa.
"They'll probably come down to the house," I told him.
"Stay on the air and let me know."
"Prinyato."
A couple of minutes later he said, "Now they are coming.
Three men. I think one is Akula. I recognise… Yes, definitely this is Shark."
"What are they doing?"
"They are coming to the door. Door opens in front. Inside house now. Zheordie?"
"Yes?"
"I notice something. When they were five metres distant, door open avtomaticheskii. And why? Some persons inside are watching with cameras.
"That's right. They've got closed-circuit TV. I filmed the cameras.
My mind was racing. Had the prisoners been taken upstairs for another session of interrogation, this time by Shark himself?
Had he brought some ace torturer with him, or maybe a nuclear expert, to find out the truth about the bomb?
I reported the arrival of the chopper to Bill Chandler.
"It could be set to lift our guys out," I warned him.
"Or the bomb. Is there any way the Yanks can track a helicopter if it takes off from here?"
"I'll ask," he said.
"I'll pass the message through. You'll tell us if it does move.
"Of course. What about binning the HALO and bringing the QRF in earlier by chopper?"
"Not a chance." Bill was adamant.
"We still don't have clearance to fly in Russian airspace. Besides, we need the element of surprise. Our information from Colonel Gerasimova in Moscow is that the defence force is bigger than you think.
There's a bigger barracks down the valley with a hundred or more in it. Plus any local guys they can muster."
"Is that right?"
"Yep. And listen, Geordie, the colonel's done us another favour. She got on to Kelsen, the firm of Finnish architects who built the villa, and faxed us the plans."
"Oh, great!" I said.
"There's a basement floor," Bill went on.
"That's got gym, games room, sauna, showers and so on. Then, below that, there's another floor, a kind of sub-basement, marked "Storage". That tallies well with the pictures you sent."
"Tochno," I went, thinking of Sasha with his eyes on the building and unconsciously slipping into Russian.
"Exactly.
That's where they brought our guys out of, that lower door. I reckon that's where they're being kept. When the assault goes in, we're going to need to hit that door first. Wait a minute, though. There must be some internal access from the store area to the upper floor. Isn't anything marked on the plan a staircase or a lift?"
"There's a lift-shaft, yes."
"Maybe the lift's knackered. Or maybe it hasn't been installed yet. Plan round taking out that lower door, anyway.
Shortly before 12:30 Sasha buzzed me up again. Toad and Pavarotti had been taken back underground, looking even worse than before. Pay was walking with a limp, and there was blood showing through the bandages on Toad's hands.
Bastards! I said to myself Just wait till we get in among them.
Bill Chandler had already told me, "No hostages." Now, after what Sasha had seen, I was going to feel no compunction about taking out everyone in the villa.
The sun never came out that day. The haze of cloud thickened steadily, and early in the afternoon snow began to fall. My problem was exhaustion. I fought it as hard as I could, but I know that I nodded off several times and when I suddenly came to, just before 3:00 p.m." I couldn't remember where I was.
Then, as I moved, snow slid off the flap of my sleeping bag and on to my face. I rolled over on to my front and looked out. Snow was falling hard a real blizzard, fine flakes slanting in towards me from my right front. The weather was coming from the south-west, from the high mountains.
When I scanned the summerhouse through my binoculars, I saw that a white blanket of snow lay unmarked all round it.
Nothing doing there.
I knew that the helicopter hadn't taken off: for one thing, I'd have heard it go; for another, it would never fly in this weather.
So Shark must still be in residence. Little did he realise that his time was rapidly running out.
Or was it? A new fear began to needle me. If this weather kept up, with its heavy cloud cover, the HALO jump might have to be postponed. Snow on the ground wouldn't matter — in fact it would make the DZ show up all the better, white in the middle of the black wood but snow clouds in the air were another matter. I'd better report the conditions to the FMB.