The Kremlin Device

Contents

Chris Ryan was born near Newcastle in 1961. He joined the SAS in 1984. During his ten years there he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq. Three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For his last two years he has been selecting and training potential recruits for the SAS.

He wrote about his experiences in the bestseller
The One That Got Away
which was also adapted for screen. He is also the author of the bestsellers
Stand By, Stand By, Zero Option, The Kremlin Device, Tenth Man Down, The Hit List, The Watchman, Land of Fire, Greed, The Increment, Blackout, Ultimate Weapon
and
Strike Back. Chris Ryan's SAS Fitness Book
and
Chris Ryan's Ultimate Survival Guide
are also published by Century.

He lectures in business motivation and security and is currently working as a bodyguard in America.

Non-fiction

Fiction

In the Alpha Force Series

In the Code Red Series

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Epub ISBN: 9781409066125

Version 1.0

  

Reissued in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2008

9 10 8

Copyright © Chris Ryan, 1998

Chris Ryan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

First published in the United Kingdom in 1998 by Century
First published in paperback in 1999 by Arrow Books

Arrow Books

The Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099460077

  

‘For what is a man profited,
if he shall gain the whole
World, and lose his own
Soul?'

For Janet and Sarah

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to give special thanks to someone who shall remain anonymous but without whose editorial help I would never have finished this. To all my family and friends for all their patience and understanding. Also to Mark Booth, Liz Rowlinson, Katie White and Rachael Healey at Century.

GLOSSARY

RUSSIAN EXPRESSIONS

ONE

With the tailgate open, the cabin depressurised and five minutes to run, we'd all gone on to individual oxygen. That knackered voice communication: for one thing, we had masks over our mouths, and for another the Here's four turbo-props were deafening. We were wearing covert radios, with throat mikes on our necks and earpieces under our helmets, but we couldn't use them until we were in the final stages of our descent, because of the risk that they'd foul up the pilots' comms.

Our PJI – the Parachute Jump Instructor from Hereford – stepped along the line of bulky figures, giving our kit final checks. The hold was so dark he was doing most of the work with his hands, following lines and straps with his fingers, pulling on rings and clips. Then the red jump-warning lights came on, like half ping-pong balls one either side of the tailgate. Two minutes to go.

Our kit made us cumbersome: GQ-360 chutes on our backs, oxygen tanks on stomachs, 120th bergens clipped upside-down on the backs of our legs and tucked high under our chutes, so that they rested against the backs of our thighs from knee to arse. Our weapons, 203s or Minimis, were tied with para-cord to our left legs. With that lot on I had a job to waddle to the rear of the plane.

As leader of the team, I'd be the first to jump.