For David Brentwood’s SAS men in the darkness of the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral, the air thick with the stench of cordite and smoke, it seemed the war was over. The SPETS were closing in, and some of the SAS had seen one of their own — from Cheek-Dawson’s Troop C — lying alone about sixty yards beyond the cathedral. Wounded and out of ammunition, he had put up his hands. “Ne stretyayte!”—”Don’t shoot!”—he’d said. The advancing SPETS beckoned him forward, waited until he was halfway between the Council of Ministers Building and the line of old Napoleonic cannons in front of the arsenal, and shot him down in at least four bursts.
“I thought,” said the Williams they called “A,” to differentiate him from Choir Williams, “we were supposed to bloody abseil out. Hook onto the wall and over we go in all the confusion?”
“That’s still the idea,” said David, his voice rising above the tearing sound of the SAS machine gun opening up from the partly opened cathedral doors. “Put on your SPETS overlays,” he ordered.
“Sir!” came one of the troopers’ voices through the darkness of the cathedral. “Sounds like they’re bringing the tanks up.”
“Is nothing sacred?” quipped Aussie, zipping up his SPETS overlay. “Bastards are gonna shoot up a flamin’ church. Dunno what the world’s comin’ to, David. Honest to Christ I don’t.”
“It’ll fall in on top of you,” answered David, “if you don’t get a move on.” They heard a scraping noise, then a rattle like stones on the roof — an SAS man who’d taken up sniper position by one of the golden domes had been spotlighted by one of the tanks that were now coming toward the Church of the Twelve Apostles just north of the cathedral after having led its column from Red Square through the Savior’s Gate.
“Antitank?” called Brentwood.
“Over here, sir!” It was Choir Williams, he of rousing hymns and football songs sung against the English “barbarians.” He was already in his overlay and quickly grabbed the two disposable French Arpac antitank missile launchers, the launchers so small — forty centimeters long, with a bore less than three inches wide, and weighing just over three pounds, with a range of one hundred yards — that the joke among the SAS troopers during training was that if you weren’t careful, you’d lose them in your pocket.
“All right, Choir,” said David. “Out the side door — and Choir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“After, come straight back. We’re not going out the way we came in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Watching the night illuminated every few seconds by flares and the flashes of exploding grenades, Choir, having waited for two seconds of darkness, slipped out of the Assumption Cathedral and within moments was flat against the southern wall of the Patriarchal Palace, easing his way down toward the black hulks of tanks that had come in by the Savior’s Gate on the Kremlin’s east side, heading toward the SAS at the bottom of the triangle.
Inside the cathedral, Cheek-Dawson was groaning, slumped against one of the ornately frescoed columns nearby, cradling his arm, the morphine wearing off. David glanced down at him, and for a moment Aussie thought Brentwood was going to try to take Cheek-Dawson out with them. But he knew Brentwood knew there was no way they could “lug out” badly wounded. It would hold up any attempt to scale the Kremlin walls — not a formidable exercise at all with the SAS training, but a suicide mission if you were trying to get over with an injured party. “Best thing we can do,” said David, “is to give him another shot of morphine before we leave. Maybe they’ll take him prisoner.”
“Yeah,” answered Aussie.
David looked around in the darkness of the huge cathedral, its columns and priceless gold icons momentarily lit by a distant flare. He called out to the men, but his words were immediately drowned by the rattle of SPETS machine-gun fire, its tracer arcing into the marble columns and smashing into the priceless wall of ancient icons that separated the nave from the sanctuary. It was coming from the first tank, now fifty yards away.
There was another long burst of heavy machine-gun tracer smacking and ricocheting in a high, buzzing sound about the cathedral. For a moment Brentwood glanced at the dim outline of the saints, the columns reminding him of the marble pillars of Mansudae Hall and the great statues of the hero workers of North Korea, all of which now seemed so long ago. Not for a minute had Freeman let them think they were beaten, and David could only wish that the general were here now.
“Listen!” he called, his voice echoing in the cathedral. “We’ve got a chance once we get over the wall. We’ll be in SPETS overlay and it’s still a few hours till dawn, so we’ll be in curfew. No civilians to give you trouble. So just go through the streets as if you own them, as if you’re SPETS looking for us. Got it? Once you reach—”
There was a clatter that reverberated through the cathedral, an SAS man catching a full burst, the force of the hits slithering him about on the floor. “All right, everyone, go! Now! Aussie leads.” David turned to the Australian. “Remember, out and down through the Hall of Facets, Annunciation Cathedral, and into Taynitsky Park. Lots of tree cover in there. They won’t know whether it’s their own or SAS even if they see you. Then use the old hook, and one, two, you’re over the wall and we’re out. I’ll follow on with Choir. Rear guard. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And Aussie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No gold souvenirs on the way.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
“Not half.”
“Too bloody heavy anyway.”
“See you at the helos.”
“Right.”
With that, in their SPETS overlays, the remaining sixteen SAS men, all that was left of the three troops, were gone, moving quickly, silently, behind Aussie toward the Hall of Facets.
Choir, invisible by the wall of the Patriarchal Palace, moved up closer in the darkness, then used the side of the Church of the Twelve Apostles for cover. He could hear the lead tank, about a hundred yards away to the left of the Great Bell Tower.
Choir lifted the Arpac, its barrel so short that aiming it made him feel as if he were playing with a toy. The tip of the shaped charge warhead with its point-detonating fuse was barely visible as he leaned against the ancient stone of the Church of the Apostles, waiting for the next glimmer of flare light to illuminate the tanks, their creaky, unoiled sound coming closer.
But there were no flares. There was no light. But Choir, his eyes growing more accustomed to the snow-curtained darkness outside the cathedral, began to make out the hump of the first T-90, then its machine gun opened up again and he could hear its rounds cracking into and about the cathedral’s door to his far right. He needed only a second for the tank to fell the peep sight. He inhaled, held his breath, and fired. The sliding barrel recoiled, and the missile’s motor, which gave off no flash, blasted from the barrel at over seventy-six meters a second. Less than one second later, the tank was belching flame, the crew screaming, the charge having penetrated the cupola, flame from the tank lighting up the snow so that Choir feared that he’d be spotted in the short sprint back to the cathedral.
But then the tank’s 135-millimeter shells began exploding, and as he ran back through the cathedral’s side door, the lead T-90 and the two behind it exploded, sending white-hot shrapnel whistling into the infantry behind the tanks and the jumble of smoking concrete that had been the Council of Ministers.
“Good work, Choir!” yelled David. “Fourth of July out there!”
Choir didn’t get the reference but he understood it was congratulatory, as Brentwood smacked him on the back, pointing him toward the doorway leading from the Assumption Cathedral to the Hall of Facets.
“You coming, sir?”
“Be along in a second,” said David. “Have to give Cheek-Dawson a shot.”
“But—” began Choir.
“Well, we can’t take him with us, can we?” said David.
“No, sir.”
“Go! See you at the choppers.”
“Yes, sir.”
David knew that Choir knew, but the Welshman didn’t linger and did as he was told.