Firewall (48 page)

Then I let the rope take my weight and climbed down as quickly as I could.

I piled snow on top of the charges so the weight of the plank didn't pull it down the other side, taking everything with it. It was important to keep the rope in place while I went off and did a quick recce; for now, it was my only escape route.

The hum of the generator was louder at ground level, more than enough to drown the crunch of my feet on virgin snow and ice as I moved toward the rusty side door. I took the flashlight from my pocket and switched it on. Just a tiny pinprick of light emerged; I'd taped over most of the reflector, leaving just a small hole.

There was work to be done on the door. It's all well and good getting on to a target, but it's just as important getting away. If I didn't have a better escape route organized than just climbing up a rope, I'd be in deep shit if I was compromised. Working with the flashlight in my mouth, I could see that the door was secured by a large bolt, maybe two feet long, set in the middle, covered in rust, and looking as if it hadn't been opened for years. I began to work on the lever with both hands, gently lifting it up and down as I pulled it back and forth, making a little progress with each movement until the thing finally gave. Pulling the door toward me about three or four inches to confirm that it would open, I then pushed it back into position. Job done, I stopped and listened: no noise but the generator.

There was no point in risking the rope being spotted now that I had an alternative escape route, so I untied it and let it go.

Shouldering the charges, I crunched along the front of the larger building, trying to keep as close to it as possible to minimize sign.

Now I could see that it was built of chalk-colored bricks that were way past their prime. If the target house was built of the same stuff, it wasn't going to be difficult to make entry.

The generator noise increased as I reached the large opening. A mass of tire tracks led in the same direction. Going inside, I moved off to the right so I wasn't silhouetted in the entrance, and stood still in the darkness, listening to the genny noise to my far left. It felt warmer in here, but I knew it wasn't really, it was just more sheltered.

Taking the flashlight out of my pocket, I pulled off the tape but kept two fingers over the lens to control its brightness. A quick shine around the cavernous interior revealed three vehicles: a Mercedes box van, with its nose pointing out, and two sedans haphazardly parked at different angles, pointing in. The floor was concrete, covered in several years' supply of frozen mud, lumps of wood and old crates.

The flashlight was too weak to reach the generator itself, but thirty paces took me right up to it. The machinery was standing on a new section of concrete floor, about two feet above ground level to keep it well out of the shit. Beyond it was the fuel tank, a large, heavy plastic cylinder supported on cinder blocks. Seeing it gave me an idea for later on.

Jutting from the front of the generator was a power cable a good three inches thick; it ran through the gable wall, where three or four bricks had been knocked out to accommodate it, and toward the target house.

I dumped my kit at the back of the generator, turned off the flashlight, and went back to the large opening and out into the compound.

Following the many footprints that had been made between this building and the target about fifteen yards away, I made my way toward the main door. Directly ahead I saw the triangle of darkness that stretched from directly below the ground-floor windowsill to about three feet out into the snow, where the light hit the ground.

I checked my weapon was properly placed in my jacket pocket so that, if needed, I could bite off my glove and draw down with ease.

Checking before passing the six-foot gap between the two buildings to my right, I could see where the generator cable came out of the barn wall and went into the target's. I also saw plenty of footprints from the path I was on, branching off between the two buildings and toward the rear of the target. People must be in and out of here all the time.

Bending down, I edged my way under the first window, as close as possible to the wall. The glass above me was protected by steel bars.

A television was on. The voices were English, and it didn't take me long to work out the channel was MTV. This got weirder by the minute.

With my back to the wall, I looked and listened. The light above me was shining through yellow floral curtains, though the material was too thick to see through. I couldn't hear any talking, just Ricky Martin singing. Putting my ear to the wall I listened again. I didn't have to try hard. Bursting in with the chorus was a heavy Eastern European accent trying to give Ricky a hand.

40

ThE target building seemed to consist of a concrete frame filled with red clay brickwork with air holes and serrated sides. Whoever had put it together had never heard of a plumb line, and too many bad winters had taken their toll on the bricks; they looked as crumbly as the one I'd tied to the plank.

With Ricky Martin reaching the end of his song, I moved up the two concrete steps to the main door. It was the same arrangement as the baar in Narva, except the other way round, with the steel grill on the outside and the wooden door set back about six inches further into the frame. I needed to find out if it was locked. It wasn't my chosen point of entry, but if the charges didn't work and the door happened to be open, at least I'd have options. More to the point, if I fucked up inside, I had an extra escape route.

The grill wasn't locked. I moved it gently backward an inch and it made no noise, so I pulled it toward me a couple of inches, returned it an inch and pulled another two, controlling the quiet squeaks as it gradually opened. Eventually the grill was open enough to squeeze my arm past and try the door. There were no sounds apart from MTV and the generator as I pushed the door handle down gently and gave a small push. It was locked.

I stood and listened, hoping to hear Tom's voice. Something was being fried, and the smell was wafting under the door. From upstairs came a shout, muffled by the sound of the TV, but it wasn't Tom's voice.

Then I realized the shouting wasn't shouting, it was meant to be singing. My friend the Ricky Martin impressionist was on his way back downstairs.

Moving out of the doorway, I pulled my glove off with my teeth and gripped my weapon. If he came out, I'd be stepping over his dead body and going straight in with so much speed, aggression, and surprise that I'd scare even myself.

His voice got louder as he reached the ground floor. A chorus of other voices bellowed from the rear of the building, maybe in Russian, but definitely telling him to shut the fuck up.

He had reached the hallway and was only feet from the door, shouting back, along with at least two other voices from the TV room. It was banter, nothing more.

The singer went back into the room and the MTV show died down to a slightly quieter level as the door was closed.

I moved back to the front door and listened. Nothing now but the sound of more music being played. Replacing my weapon, I slowly closed the grill the same way as I'd opened it.

Moving back down the steps, I followed the tracks toward the far end of the target, ducking under the left-hand window and into its dark triangle. Even with my ear to the wet, cold wall, I could hear no sound from inside. The windows were steamed up behind the steel bars; maybe this was the kitchen?

I reached the corner of the building and cleared it. There were no windows this side, but plenty of footprints in the snow leading to the rear. What could easily be seen, however, even in this light, was a large satellite dish, slightly jutting out to the left of the building and pointing upward at about forty-five degrees. I felt as if I was having a Microsoft HQ flashback, and hoped the NSA didn't arrive to complete the story. At the same time I was pleased I'd seen it. The dish was my only confirmation that this really was the target.

I counted the paces as I moved toward it, in preparation for laying the charges. Seventeen one-yard steps took me to the rear of the building.

I cleared the corner and the generator gained a decibel or two. Light was shining through curtains from both of the upstairs windows, just enough to cast a dim glow over the satellite dish's two friends. All three were about the same size as those at Microsoft HQ, but made of solid plastic, not mesh. They pointed skyward in different directions.

They weren't static, dug-in dishes, but on stands, with ice-covered sandbags over the legs to keep them in position. Like the Finnish ones, they, too, were clear of snow and ice, and the whole area around them was trampled down. Beyond them, maybe forty yards away, was the dark shape of the rear compound wall.

I turned the corner and realized that hidden in the shadow of the top windows' dark triangles were two more windows on the ground floor, without light. All four mirrored the ones on the front of the target.

To get under the first window took five paces, making it twenty two in total so far. I crouched by three thick, snow-covered satellite feeds which came out of the snow and disappeared into a hole in the brickwork directly beneath the first ground-floor window. The gap around the cabling was roughly refilled with concrete.

The downstairs windows on this side were also barred. I could now see chinks of light around the edges of the frame I was crouching beneath.

Lifting my eyes to the sill for a closer look, I saw that the glass was boarded over from the inside.

I heard a humming noise coming from the other side of the boards, high-pitched and electrical, unlike the throbbing diesel further along in the other building. No human voices, but I knew they were there somewhere. I never thought I'd find myself longing to hear Tom asking for a cup of herbal tea "My body's a temple, know what I mean, Nick?" but it didn't happen.

Stepping over the cables, it took me another nine slow and careful paces to the next window to add to the twenty-two. I'd soon know how much det cord I'd need to take off the reel.

This window was also boarded up, but there was a little more light spilling out. Two sheets of quarter-inch plywood, which should have been flush against the glass, were not, leaving a half-inch gap on the right-hand side.

Doing a Houdini, I adjusted my head to try and get a good viewing angle, pressing it right up against the iron bars, the hat working as a perfect insulator for my head. I got a glimpse of very bright lighting, under which I could see a bank of about five or six gray plastic PC monitors facing away from me, their rear vents black with burned dust. Judging from what I could see, this rear half of the building was one big room.

As I adjusted my head in an another attempt to see more, everything inside went dark. A body blocked my view. I watched as he leaned forward on his arms, his head moving from side to side as he studied the different screens in front of him, no more than two feet away from me. He must have been about mid-thirties with short dark-blond hair on top of a very square head, and he was wearing a patterned crewneck sweater that any geek's mother would have been proud of. He started to smile, then nodded to himself as he turned toward the gap. He was no more than a foot away now as he answered a quick aggressive Russian voice behind him. He looked down at something, and whatever it was he was happy about it. Maybe Tom had come up with the goods for them and they had Echelon. If so, it wouldn't be for long.

He picked up a sheet of printed paper and waved it at whoever was behind him, then he moved out of my line of vision, back into the room.

It was probably the Christmas lunch menu from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego. They seemed to know everything else that was happening there.

At least I knew where the kit that had to be destroyed was all I needed to find now was Tom. I waited for further movement for another fifteen minutes with my eye to the gap, but nothing happened. I was getting very cold and my toes were numb. Lion King told me it was only 5:49; it was going to get a whole lot colder yet.

I moved to the next corner of the target, toward the generator. It was another five paces, which made thirty-six in total. I was happy; there was more than enough det cord.

I turned right and walked down the small gap between the two buildings, stepping over the generator cable lying in the snow. Just as with the satellite cables, a hole had been punched through the target's brickwork and the gap refilled with handfuls of concrete.

I made my way back to the generator building and started to prepare the kit. The first thing I checked was that I still had the batteries in my inside pocket: In dems, it's the ultimate sin to lose control of the initiation device, on a par with leaving your weapon more than an arm's length away from you. I'd been keeping them close to my body to stop them getting sluggish in the cold; they needed to work first time.

I didn't need light for unrolling the det cord because I knew what I was doing, but the generator noise would drown out any human movement coming into the building, so I had to keep my eyes on the entrance while I was working. Placing the reel between my feet, I held the loose end in my right hand and stretched out my arm, pushing the det cord into my armpit with my left. I did that thirty-six times, plus an extra five to cover what I needed to do on the wall this side of the target. I added two more for luck, cutting it with my blackened Leatherman. I then laid it on the floor, next to the charges. This was now called the main line, and would be used to send the shock wave to all the charges at once via their det tails.

The next thing I had to sort out was the little brain wave I'd had for the fuel tank. What I had in mind was the most spectacular explosion this side of Hollywood. When the fuel tank blew it wouldn't be the most productive bang in the world, but the effect would be phenomenal.

I climbed the ladder of the tank with the det cord in my hand, slowly un feeding it from the reel. When I lifted the flap on the tank, the flashlight beam hit on the surface of shiny liquid that filled about three-quarters of the cylinder. After tying a double knot on the end of the cord, I pulled the gas-station shopping bag from my jacket. In it was the spare four-pound ball of PE that any dems man worth his salt always carries to plug up any holes or damage to a charge. The smell wasn't too bad out in the open as I ripped off about half and played with it to warm it up.