War with Russia

“Good idea, Dave. Director Special Forces was in my office earlier having heart failure as to how to get his guys into Kaliningrad. The border with Poland is out, as it is so short and heavily defended. The Shaky Boats[4] think that going in by sea is suicide and I tend to agree. If they try HAHO’ing or HALO’ing in blind, the chances are they’ll land on a Russian bayonet or at least a Russian. They are nearly all Russian there and they’ll be reported in a moment. No… I like it, Dave. Coming in from the north and through Russian-occupied territory has to be the sneakiest way in. Consider it done.”

The phone went dead. Kydd’s mind had clearly moved onto other things that needed chasing in London.

0403 hours, Thursday, June 8, 2017

Gauja National Park Forest, Latvia

MAJOR ANATOLY NIKOLAYEVICH Vronsky, of 45th Guards Spetsnaz Regiment, checked his watch once again as he had done incessantly for the past hour. However, much as he wanted time to move on, it was refusing to do so and the luminous dials told him that it was still another twenty-eight minutes until 0431 and sunrise. That was when the attack on the camp was due to go in; a half-light to help his men see where they were going and distinguish between friend and enemy: dozy defenders doubtless awoken from a deep sleep and unable to react in time.

So far things had gone entirely according to plan, so now there was nothing to do but suppress his anxiety and wait. Even as he felt a drip of water find its way down the back of his neck he smiled: the light rain that had just started to fall was just what was needed. The soft pitter-patter of rain on the forest canopy would help mask any sound his team made as they moved in for the kill.

He stifled a yawn. The damp from the forest leaves he was lying on was soaking up into his body and his eyes felt heavy. It had been a long night’s patrol through the forest to move into position without being detected, and that after a day silently closing in on their enemy. His body craved proper food and drink after a couple of days’ hard routine; no cooking and only an occasional swallow from his water bottle, a couple of packets of dry crackers, and an unheated can of unidentifiable fish to sustain him. Enough of feeling sorry for yourself, this would soon be over, he told himself, and then it would be back to the barracks at Ādaži for a celebratory drink and a large steak; the Latvians had certainly known how to look after themselves and their Russian successors were enjoying the rations they had left behind.

Now it was time to focus. Once more he ran a mental check on the plan and the rapid pace of events that had brought him into the forest to attack this base, belonging, it appeared, to a particularly effective group of Latvian Forest Brothers. What still surprised him was the direct Presidential order he had received five days ago: to capture the British terrorists. Not for the first time, Vronsky questioned the wisdom of getting personal because, grateful as he was that the President had entrusted him with this mission, it smacked of the old-fashioned peasant vendetta. However, his orders could not have been clearer.

Certainly the Commander of the Western Group of Forces had taken the President’s orders as his personal command and had stopped at nothing to locate them. Their communications specialists had only a few short intercepts of data-burst transmission to work on. However, despite the considerable efforts of whoever was transmitting to avoid creating a pattern, computer analysis allowed them to zero in on the deep forest in the northern, most remote part of the Guaja National Park, close to the Gauja River, an area almost unmapped and visited only by the occasional hunter.

Aerial searches by Zastava drones carrying full-motion video and multispectral imaging sensors, integrated with forward-looking infrared capable of detecting the radiation from a heat source beneath the forest canopy, next revealed a number of potential hiding places deep in the forest that suggested recent habitation. Although, whether by humans or bears was a moot point and required boots on the ground, rather than a heat-seeking lens in the air.

And then, four days ago, the searchers had struck lucky. A short text message from a mobile phone had been picked up from within a hundred meters of one of the possible forest hide locations. Surveillance drones had then revealed movement on both foot and by cross-country motorcycle. The link was made with the President’s attackers two weeks ago—they had escaped on scramblers—and Vronsky had been ordered to mount the operation as a matter of urgency.