Battleground

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BATTLEGROUND

A DOUBLEDAY BOOK

Hardback: 978 0 385 61299 9

Trade paperback: 978 0 385 61300 2

Published in Great Britain by doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

A Random House Group Company

This edition published 2009

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as The author of this work has been asserted in accordance with The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

Battleground is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without The prior permission of The publishers.

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FACT

On 7 September 1997, former Soviet military commander Alexander Lebev claimed that 100 Russian-made suitcase- sized nuclear bombs were currently ‘not under Russian control’. The Russian Federation denied these claims, but they were backed up by stanislav Lunev, The highest-ranking Soviet officer ever to defect from Russia. Lunev believed that some of these nuclear weapons had already been deployed. What was beyond doubt was that The Russians no longer knew where they were . . .

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Also by Chris Ryan, and published by

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HUNTED

BLOOD MONEY

FAULT LINE

BLACK GOLD

UNTOUCHABLE

Published by the Random House Group

for adult readers:

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The One That Got Away

Chris Ryan’s SAS Fitness Book

Chris Ryan’s Ultimate Survival Guide

Fiction

Stand By, Stand By

Zero Option

The Kremlin Device

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The Hit List

The Watchman

Land of Fire

Greed

The Increment

Blackout

Ultimate Weapon

Strike Back

Firefight

Who Dares Wins

One Good Turn

Adult Quick Read for World Book Day 2008

Author’s note

In August 2008, 3,000 British troops and a convoy of vehicles spent five days moving a new turbine across Helmand Province to the Kajaki dam. It was one of the biggest operations of the current war effort in Afghanistan and is testament to the importance of Kajaki. British forces continue to guard the dam diligently. It remains a principal target for the enemy insurgents in the area, who would like to see it destroyed. If this happened, it would be an untold disaster for southern Afghanistan.

Prologue

The mountains of Afghanistan, 1986.

‘
Ambush!
’

Dmitri Kirov, the Soviet soldier, barked the word in Russian. He was in the middle of the convoy, which came to a sudden halt. There were ten of them in three vehicles, all heavily armed because they carried a precious cargo: the case at his feet in the rear of this open-backed truck.

They’d been going slowly. The road up into the mountains was narrow. The pale, wintry sun failed to melt the patches of ice on the road, and with the wind it felt like it was several degrees below zero. Worse than that, their own army had littered this place with anti-personnel mines as part of their long war against the Mujahideen of Afghanistan. These mines were an effective way of killing people. The trouble with them was that they didn’t mind which people they killed: Mujahideen, innocent children, or Soviet soldiers.

To drive through this part of the world was to take your life in your hands.

‘
Ambush!
’

Kirov was a tough man. A fierce soldier. They all were. That’s why they’d been chosen for this job – a job where they could expect random attacks from a determined enemy. But even he knew, as he stood exposed in the open air with his AK-47 pointing straight ahead, that the situation was bad. To his right, on the slope leading up into the mountains, three men in black robes and head-dresses had appeared from nowhere. They each knelt on one knee and pointed their rifles in the direction of the convoy. Four more men appeared, two at the front of the convoy and two at the back, at a distance of about twenty metres. They were dressed the same way, but instead of rifles they carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers. RPG-7s. Dmitri Kirov would recognize them anywhere.

There was a still, horrible silence, then one of the men at the front barked an order.

The thumping sound of the grenades being launched went right through Kirov. But it was nothing compared to the sound they made when they hit the front and rear trucks in the convoy. It was a massive explosion that echoed across the mountains. The truck ahead of him was a sudden flash of orange fire and black smoke. He thought he heard the sound of one of his comrades screaming inside it.

The scream didn’t last long.

Kirov felt his skin scorching; he could smell burning diesel and his own singed hair. Smoke surrounded him and he started firing blindly towards the slope. There was an immediate return of fire. Bullets started zipping over his head, but by some miracle they didn’t hit him. He had to duck down into the back of the truck for cover, his head in his hands as fear overtook him.

He heard the sound of shouting and made a quick calculation. There had been four men in the front truck and three in the back, which meant that of the ten of them who had set out that morning, seven were already dead. Kirov expected to join them any second.

The comrades in the front of his truck started shouting, and then there was the sound of two shots.

Then silence. He knew what that meant.

With a cold, creeping feeling, Kirov realized he was the only one left.

The two trucks were still burning and crackling. He looked up from his crouching position, and through the wobbly heat haze he saw three of the black-robed men approach, their rifles pointing in his direction. Kirov knew there was no way he could fight his way out of this situation, so he left his AK-47 on the floor of the truck and raised his hands in the air. Perhaps the Mujahideen would show him mercy. Just perhaps . . .

A harsh voice, speaking Russian with an accent. ‘Get down!’

Kirov hesitated.

‘Get down!
Now!
’

He did as he was told, wincing from the heat of the burning metal on either side. Once he was down from the truck, one of his attackers grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the edge of the road before forcing him to his knees and pointing a gun at his head. The rest of the ambushers swarmed over the truck like black wasps.

Kirov was shaking with fear. ‘P-please,’ he stuttered. ‘Please, do not—’

‘Silence!’

A second ambusher approached and the two black-robed men spoke in what Kirov supposed was the Afghan language of Pashtun. Then the man who held him at gunpoint spoke to him once more.

‘What are you carrying in the back of the truck?’ he demanded.

‘N-nothing,’ Kirov stuttered. ‘It is nothing.’

‘Kill him,’ the second man said.

‘
No! Wait!
’ Kirov’s breath came in sharp, frightened gasps. ‘I will tell you.’

‘You should do it quickly, if you don’t want a bullet in your brain.’

Kirov could hardly get the words out. ‘It is a weapon,’ he said.

The two Mujahideen looked at each other. ‘What sort of weapon?’

‘A bomb,’ Kirov replied. ‘A suitcase bomb. Nuclear. If you destroy that truck, it will take out half this mountainside.’