Kara Kush

  Louis Palmer’s days as a shipwright had not been wasted. One look at the battered gunboat and he recognized it as a type which had been popular, for prestige, among second-rate rulers in the nineteenth century. It would be very vulnerable to modern explosives. Forty years ago, it had been brought, in pieces, across the Caspian Sea to Krasnovoksk, and thence shipped overland and down the Oxus River, to be sold to the Afghan government. Even then it had been almost a museum-piece.

  Palmer and his group set the charges and primed them, while Adam, with Qasim and Zelikov, wandered through the gloomy, foul-smelling bowels of the ship, looking for the gold. First they found the guards, playing card-games, cleaning their weapons or brewing tea in the large second-class saloon aft. Forward were the two officers, one drunk, the other, satisfied that he had no special responsibilities until the change of watch, studying for promotion examinations.

  But where was the treasure?

  Qasim had just stubbed his toe on a projecting board in the floor of the main cargo hold, which seemed very small and low, when he realied that the whole floor was composed of wooden boxes. He was actually standing on the cargo, which filled half of the total height of the hold.

  Qasim hissed to attract Adam’s attention. When he came over, Qasim asked, ‘What does “thirty noto” mean, Adam?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘There are dozens, or hundreds, of boxes here. They’ve all got that stencilled on them.’

  Zelikov crept up to them. ‘That not “thirty noto”! That zolata, Russian word, Cyrillic alphabet. Means Gold. This is IT, gospodeen!’

  Adam went over to where Azambai was conversing in a low voice with Palmer, about something to do with detonating the gelignite.

  ‘Yusuf: we’ve found the gold. Tons of it! Let’s get it out, instead of blowing it up!’

  ‘You must be crazy! Something could happen at any moment. We got on board and we’ve got the explosives set. Now, for goodness sake, let’s get out while we’re still alive. Suppose they see us taking things away from the ship? Bringing stuff on board, after all, isn’t the same thing.’ He didn’t feel like a hero, somehow, at that moment.

  ‘I’m going to do it, Yusuf, say what you like. We could use that money to buy arms, to look after the wounded, to get proper medical attention. People are dying from starvation and lack of medicines.’

  Azambai paused, then shook The Eagle’s hand. ‘You’re right, Adam. I’m with you.’

  The boxes were not very heavy. They weighed about twenty pounds each, and their tops were nailed down. ‘I estimate,’ whispered Adam, ‘that there must be about a thousand mohurs in each box. Ten boxes and we’ll have one and a half million dollars. A hundred boxes would be fifteen million dollars!’

  Fifteen million dollars … ten million pounds sterling … thirty-two million Swiss francs! Stuck in the bowels of an ancient gunboat full of KGB men, guarded by the Soviet Army a stone’s throw from the USSR. However plausible the story of this chemical warfare unit might have been, Adam knew that the tale wouldn’t cover the theft of the gold. ‘Excuse me, Gritkin, we are just carrying this treasure away to decontaminate it …’

  A bluff, that’s what he needed. Something that would enable his men to get the boxes onto the quay, into the personnel-carriers, and away. Not while all those Russians were watching, surely? Of course not …

  Quickly Adam surveyed the rubbish in the hold, and saw a drum of worn electric cable. Not far away there was a pile of old rubber sponges. He stabbed a hole through the centre of a handful of these and threaded them onto the cable.

  Azambai looked on in amazement. ‘Have you gone crazy?’

  Adam quickly explained. ‘There are seven Russian sergeants in the saloon aft. Round them up and tell them that we need help, from responsible people, for part of our work. Say it’ll only take a few moments. But get them all into the forward saloon …’

  ‘You think they’ll fall for that?’ Azambai’s eyes were wide with amazement.

  ‘Better men than them have fallen for it. You see, you know what’s happening and they don’t. In that situation people will do almost anything they’re told. Gritkin probably wouldn’t be so easily fooled, and we can only hope he’s too busy to leave his office. The captain’s too drunk to bother, wouldn’t even notice an air raid.’

  Adam sent Zelikov to brief his men in the personnel-carriers. Each man was to walk to the gangway and descend to the hold. Then, like robots working in perfect sequence, the guerrillas were to shoulder the boxes and ferry them to the deck, from there to the gangway, and then to the vehicles. Very rapidly: not one step missed, not one moment lost.

  When Adam got to the forward saloon, he found Azambai there, surrounded by Russians, all looking attentively at what he was doing. ‘Chemical protection,’ he was explaining, ‘has to be very carefully calculated, with reference to local background humidity.’ He shook the flex, with its dirty bits of sponge dangling like an illustration of how to use a washing line.

  The Russians nodded their understanding.

  ‘Now,’ Yusuf Azambai continued, ‘if you will just hold this end …’ In a moment he had the seven sergeants holding the flex tightly against the panelling. He made them move until they were equally spaced around the saloon.

  ‘Note carefully and with complete attention: the cable must be taut and the sponges must be in contact with the wall. That’s fine, you’re learning. It needs only a few minutes for the rubber indicators to absorb moisture. I’ll be right back with the electronic meter to take a reading. I’m most grateful to you all. No, don’t let it sag. Fine!’

  Azambai was now at the door; together he and Adam slipped away. The two raced up the companionway and across the deck to see the last of the gold porters disappearing into the darkness of the quay, beyond the floodlights.

  Fifteen million American dollars, Adam thought – as the alarm klaxons started to blare.

  4 Leninised

  On the Oxus River

  JULY 21

  When the alarm went, Palmer had just connected his firing plunger to the charges. The shock of the raucous braying of the klaxons, mounted on poles every few yards along the quay, made him lose his balance. He only just saved himself from falling on the plunger, activating the induction coil – and killing everyone in the port area, including himself.

  The Eagle, rushing to the main saloon, saw Lieutenant Gritkin at the radio, earphones on his head, left forefinger jabbing the klaxon alarm-button. He must have had second thoughts, and contacted his headquarters.

  Gritkin grabbed for the grey enamel box on the table, the one marked ALTINKUSH, as he saw Adam. Acting in reflex, Adam seized the box and drew his gun, and turned to face the revolver in the Russian’s left hand. They were both panting like fighting dogs.

  A dead heat. As Adam stood wondering whether he could risk rushing the man, staccato shooting broke out on the dockside below. For a fraction of a second, Gritkin’s concentration broke. His eyes started to move to the left, came back again – and Adam shot him through the heart.

  The noise of automatic rifle-fire was more intense now. Adam smashed the glass in the central saloon’s large dockside window and looked at the scene below. The lights were still on. Fifteen feet below him the Leopard Man, Cadet Arif Qamarudin, was jabbing with his bare hands, stiffened in karate style, at two Russian sergeants. One was wielding a wooden pole, the other had stepped back to punch a fresh magazine into his gun.

  Holding the box by its strap in his right hand, Adam jumped. He landed on the neck and shoulders of the Russian with the gun. For a moment both lay there, winded, on the concrete. Adam felt the sticky warmth on his hand which told him that one of them was wounded. As he sprang up, he saw that blood was seeping from a bayonet wound in the Russian’s side. He had fallen on his own gun.

  The other Russian was looming now. Where was Arif? No time to look. The pole came swishing down, hit him a glancing blow on the cheek.

  The next thing he knew was that
he was in the leading personnel-carrier, being propped up on the hard seat by Zelikov. Arif, felled by his opponent, had recovered and jerked the man’s legs from behind, when the man was momentarily off balance. Zelikov, coming up, had dragged Adam back to the carrier.

  Adam fought the little Russian off, and plunged back onto the quay. A whirl of struggling figures, just outside the guard-hut, was milling, swirling and moving like a grotesque ballet scene. The Nuristanis and the other Afghans were dealing with the shore-guards.

  The klaxons were blaring again. Over by the guardhouse, Adam could see that the two armoured personnel-carriers which he had left to guard the entrance were fighting off troops who had obviously been rushed to the entrance. The Nuristanis had moved all the vehicles side-on to the gates, so that they could not be crashed through. It enabled them, too, to fire through the gunslits from inside, in comparative safety.

  The Jihun was overrun with brawling, struggling figures. Major Azambai and the Turkestanis, as soon as the alarm went, had, as arranged beforehand, made straight for the KGB men aboard. Confused by the Soviet uniforms of their attackers, the Russians had, at first, run in all directions, pursued by the Wolves, who were now dealing with them with knives, guns, bare hands, belaying-pins and jackboots. Most of the Russians were fighting back. Men soon lay sprawled everywhere: on the decks, on piles of canvas, on half-open hatches. One, with a broken neck, was wedged, grotesquely, upside-down, on an iron ladder, as if arrested in full flight.

  Adam shot three of the KGB men as he ran from fight to fight, helping the Afghans who seemed most hard-pressed. In four or five minutes it was over. Even the alarm no longer wailed. All was quiet, on the ship, apart from the groans of the wounded.

  Azambai ran up to The Eagle. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Get your dead and wounded to the APCs, Yusuf, and stand by,’ Adam said. He had seen that the Russian shore-guards were flagging. The Turkestanis would soon have them under control. The main gate still held. But soon the Russians outside would bring up heavy guns, and probably rockets.

  He scrambled to the dockside once more, colliding with Arif, who was running towards the men fighting near the hut. Stopping him, Adam picked up the document box, still lying there beside the two dead Russians, and told the Leopard Man to take it to the first APC.

  Then he saw Palmer, with a bayonet slash in his leg, staggering towards him, the long yellow electric line of the detonator between his fingers.

  ‘Leave it, Louie, too dangerous!’

  They couldn’t blow the ship up, now, or they’d all go up with it. As the last of the resistance of the shore guard was crushed, Palmer sat down groggily on a bollard. Bullets from the Russians outside the gates whizzed past, ricocheting with an ugly whine. He took no notice, gathering his strength.

  Two minutes later Major Han came running up. ‘There’s no way into this area except through those gates. Everything else is blast-proof concrete. Everyone is defending the gates now. All other resistance has been overcome. What are the orders for withdrawal?’

  ‘Right.’ Adam looked around. The major, Qasim and Palmer were waiting.

  He turned to Palmer. ‘Louie, how wide is the river here?’

  ‘About half a mile.’

  ‘That’s the way we go, then.’

  They all looked at him. ‘Swimming?’ asked Qasim, incredulously.

  ‘The APCs are amphibious. We’ll sail them out. Get all the drivers ready. The quay slopes down to river-level over there, to the left. Abandon the scout car, of course. Haraka, move!’

  Everyone scattered to the armoured vehicles, as the Russians outside the gates stopped firing. A voice, speaking in Dari-Persian, came from a loud-hailer.

  ‘I want to speak to your leader.’

  It was repeated three times.

  ‘Zelikov, get that bullhorn from the guard-hut,’ said Palmer, whose leg was being bandaged by the little Russian.

  Zelikov brought it, and Adam moved carefully towards the gate. He put the megaphone to his lips.

  ‘What do you want, traitor?’

  ‘Agha-i-Mukarram – honoured sir!’ The voice was oily and frightened. Some miserable semi-literate clerk, typical of the scum that were fawning at the Russians’ heels, thought Adam. They’d been given important jobs, in name, but their Russian ‘advisers’ had the real power.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I am Nasim, harbour master, and I want to have a dialogue with you.’

  ‘A dialogue?’ One of those new jargon words, like ‘norm’ … Adam could play for time.

  ‘Yes. We realize that you have some sort of grievance. I am authorized to say that we shall listen to it, and you have a guarantee of safe conduct and an amnesty if you come out and give up your weapons. Rebels have often been misled by revanchists.’

  ‘Well,’ shouted Adam, ‘I’ll have to think it over, and I’ll talk to you again when I have consulted my associates.’

  ‘Yes, by all means,’ said the voice, after a pause, no doubt to discuss matters with his Russian superior. ‘I am authorized to say that you have five minutes.’

  ‘Make it ten.’

  ‘Just a moment.’

  Then, ‘Very well, ten minutes. But after that we are coming in with tanks and heavy rockets and you’ll be blown to pieces.’

  ‘Tell Nikolai I don’t like your threats.’

  ‘Ten minutes, honoured sir.’

  Adam walked back to where his commanders were standing.

  ‘We’ve got ten minutes. Do the drivers know how to transfer the engine drive from the wheels to the amphibious mode?’

  Azambai said, ‘Yes, it’s easy. There are diagrams, on the dashboards.’

  ‘Good. How many men have we left?’

  ‘Sixty-six. We’ve lost ten, dead. All the wounded can fight, so I’ve included them in the total. There are thirty of those.’

  Adam turned to Palmer. ‘Louie, can we set off the charges without going up, too?’

  Palmer smiled. ‘I haven’t been wasting my time, Eagle. It’s all hitched onto radio detonation now. We can fire it from as far away as three miles.’

  ‘Great. I’m going to keep them talking, while you get the APCs ready to swim. The command will be the Afghan proverb about the pigeons and hawks, which you will hear through the loud-hailer. Have all drivers informed.’

  ‘Right.’

  As Adam walked back to the corner from which he had spoken to the harbourmaster, he heard the distinct rumble of the huge T-10 tanks, heading for the docks. At their top speed of twenty-six miles an hour, they could overrun the Commando very quickly indeed.

  He raised the transistorized hailer to his lips and shouted, ‘Harbourmaster!’

  ‘Yes, honoured sir. Are you surrendering?’

  They weren’t going to offer any amnesty. It was simply a way to gain time. Better get out before the tanks crashed in.

  ‘I have this to say,’ Adam shouted, ‘’Tis always a kind with its kind will fly: pigeons or hawks, up in the sky!’

  Adam did not wait for an answer. He threw down the loud-hailer and scrambled aboard his personnel-carrier as the line of vehicles shot forward, over the concrete, down the ramp, into the water, and away.

  They headed upstream for a quarter of a mile, nosing through the darkness, with their infra-red searchlights full on, and unmolested. ‘Let’s have the firework show, Louie,’ The Eagle said; ‘I expect there are lots of Russians on board the Jihun by now.’

  Seconds later, they heard the roar of the explosion, and instinctively ducked as the pieces of wreckage, some very large, came thudding and drumming down onto the thick armour-plate above their heads. The roof stopped them seeing the explosions, but at least they were safe.

  ‘I’m so glad it was the modern BTR-60PKs we managed to get hold of,’ said Major Han, ‘because the ordinary ‘60s’ only have soft tops, you know. Some of that debris is really dangerous.’

  ‘If I wasn’t so pooped,’ said Palmer, ‘I’d run over and have me a visi
t with the Russkis on their home ground. You do realize, don’t you, that this is the frontier, and there’s nothing but water between us and the Workers’ Paradise?’

  ‘Don’t send me back to the USSR,’ said Zelikov, in mock terror, ‘because I like it in the woods. I don’t want to be outnumbered by Turkestanis.’

  Everyone realized that a joke helped to relieve the tension, even a poor joke.

  ‘There’s worse things than Turkestanis, lad!’ The Turkestani Azambai was only half joking.

  The APCs, engines throbbing heavily in the fast waters of the Oxus, headed steadily westwards as Zelikov fiddled with the Russian army radio, trying to raise Dushanbe, the powerful transmitter in Soviet Turkestan. There it was, now, on 1143 kilohertz in the medium waveband:

  ‘Inja Dushanbe – here is Dushanbe.’

  Then Dushanbe, a hundred and fifty miles away, announced the evening news. It was all about how in neighbouring, fraternal Afghanistan, the workers were glorying in their new-found freedom. Of course, said the silky voice of the speaker, true Afghans deplored the acts of the two per cent, the insignificant but shameful minority, the trouble-makers, egged on by international capitalist warmongering circles, who had made them think that they could ‘reverse the tide of history’, which Lenin had demonstrated could not be done.

  ‘The Great Lenin …’ Dushanbe was saying, though even the Turkstani commentator now sounded as if his heart was not really in it – and Zelikov switched off.

  ‘Well, we certainly Leninized them today,’ said The Eagle.

  5 March South …

  Wolf Redoubt

  JULY 21

  The amphibians nosed ashore, twenty kilometres south-west of Qizil Qala Port, on the hard desert sand where a break in the reed-beds formed a broad salt beach. They had been on the river for two hours. They were now only fifty kilometres due north of the Wolves’ headquarters at Kurt Burj, and there was still no sign of any pursuit.