War with Russia

Thank God though for those negligently fired shots and the machine-gun fire that followed it. Morland could still remember the sudden sound of the distant rounds as they shattered the silence of the forest, startling him into shocked wakefulness. He knew full well, and Wild had not stopped reminding the team since, that it was only the speed of their constantly rehearsed bug-out drills that had enabled them to escape the well-placed trap.

As he went through his now all-too-familiar “lying-up” routine, he was conscious of the faint rustles of the others doing the same; quietly, systematically and professionally. In mere minutes the movements stopped. The forest fell silent, except for the hoot of an owl and the scuffling of a distant wild boar rooting around for food in the undergrowth.

However, desperate for sleep as he was, with their objective now so close by, Morland found himself on full alert, ears cocked, listening for anything that might indicate they’d been compromised. Try as he might to convince himself he was imagining things, he kept seeing the face of the Russian Spetsnaz commander who had stared so intently at him when he’d roared past on the back of an escaping scrambler bike as the dawn light penetrated the forest: medium height, early thirties, close-cropped, dark hair, and wearing green combats, with no identifying insignia or badges. The man who had orchestrated the riot in Riga, the man he’d seen talking into his radio just before the snipers opened up on the crowd in the Vermanes Gardens, the man who had ordered the cold-blooded execution of those young girls. One glance had been enough, but when they had finally stopped at the next secret bunker, he had checked the pictures on his camera. It was the same man.

Again, the same thought recurred: what was that Russian doing there, leading an ambush, when a man of his evident importance surely had more important things to do? And was it paranoia, brought on by fear and exhaustion and that single stare, that now had Morland wondering whether it was him the Russian had been seeking? If so, was the Russian still tracking him? Because, if the Spetsnaz commander had managed to find them once in the wilderness, might he be able to do so again? Was he closing in on them even now?

They had moved from hide to hide, never staying long enough to give away evidence of their occupation—tracks worn in the forests, the build-up of rubbish and bodily wastes, all potential giveaways to determined searchers with sophisticated kit. Some hides had been built so deep underground that they would defeat the most advanced heat-seeking drones. But after their near capture they had continued to move, regardless.

They had been equally disciplined in their infrequent use of the radio, always traveling some distance away from their hides to send information and receive orders; Corporal Steve Bradley, his Kiwi signaler, obsessive about never transmitting for too long. But still Morland worried; fears for which he had no answers, fears he had decided to keep to himself rather than alarm the others. They were all stressed enough as it was. Weeks of ambushes and intelligence gathering, followed by high-speed changes of location to throw off any pursuers, had taken them all to the edge.

Silence: time to trust the sentry and get some much-needed sleep. As he forced himself to relax, Morland caught the warm reek of his filthy combat kit and unwashed body. We’ve pretty much gone feral, he thought. Wild beards, matted, filthy hair and scrawny from living on the dwindling and ever-more basic field rations that the Latvians and Lithuanians had shared with them. Not that it mattered. They all smelt as bad as one another and they hardly noticed the stench. In fact, even if they had been able to, they wouldn’t have washed as the smell of soap could be enough to give them away to a patrol or a wild animal, so drawing attention to their position.

He’d expected his guys to cope; after all, they were experienced infantrymen and recce men, and they had done so—despite the usual grumbles. The Lithuanians, like the Latvians, were naturals. But, and somewhat to his surprise, Krauja had been the star. She had put up with the hardships, had taken her share of the stags, and her surveillance expertise had made her invaluable recceing the compound. More than that, behind her natural Latvian reserve, she could display a soldier’s sense of humor and, when minded, could banter with the best of them.