He led the way through the kitchens to the staff quarters, stepped in the first walk-in shower exactly as he was, in combat uniform and clutching an AK-47. He switched it on full. “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

They stared at him in astonishment, and Bounine was next. “A bloody marvelous idea.” He stepped under the next one.

The rest of the men followed boisterously, like schoolboys after football, and the filth and the stench of the sewers washed away in dark brown rivulets.

LATER IN THE bar lounge they rested, eating a whole range of canned foods from the kitchens, discovering that the electricity worked in parts of the hotel and that there were lights in the bar. “Not that we could use those,” Bounine said. “It would attract everyone in the city.”

Kurbsky had informed Command of their whereabouts and had been promised fresh orders, which hadn’t come. He and Bounine had been working their way through a bottle of champagne, and he was just refilling the glass when there was a sound of vehicles outside.

Kirov, who’d been left on guard duty at the door, ran in. “They’re ours, Lieutenant, somebody important, I think.”

Which it was. About a dozen men appeared, flooding into the foyer, excited at the riches the bar disclosed, started forward, and came to a halt, reacting at once to shouted commands. A moment later, General Chelek, the area commander, walked through the crowd. There was little to distinguish him from his men; he was just as unshaven, his uniform just as filthy.

Kurbsky and his men stood up. He came forward and took the bottle of champagne from Kurbsky’s hand and looked at the label. “Very nice, you lads are doing all right. Who are you?” He took the glass from Kurbsky’s hand and it was filled.

“Fifth Paratroop Assault Platoon.”

“The Black Tigers, isn’t that what they call you? I thought there were fifty in your unit.”

“What you see is what you get, General, thirteen.”

“Unlucky for some, they say.”

“Which means you need us for something rotten?”

Chelek went behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of vodka. He glanced at his men, who stood waiting. “Okay, pitch in.” Which they did. He sat at the end of the bar with Kurbsky. “Who are you?”

“Alexander Kurbsky, Comrade. I’m the only officer left.”

“Your name is not unknown to me. Yes, I’ve got something pretty heavy for you. One of our most implacable foes in the Grozny area has been General Shadid Basayev. You’ve heard of him?”

“Of course.”

Bounine, who had been standing close, said, “He went to Rome to university, General, studied law. He’s a Muslim who married an Italian woman and became a Catholic.”

Chelek shrugged. “Men will do strange things where a woman is concerned, even a man like Shadid Basayev. You seem well-informed, Sergeant.”

“He was once a lawyer,” Kurbsky explained. “At Rome University.”

Bounine said, “The KGB put a bomb in Basayev’s car before the war here in Grozny. His wife was using the car, not him, and he has never forgiven us. That’s why he kills Russians with such venom.”

“I’m aware of that. Basayev has withdrawn into the mountains for a while. My intelligence sources say he is at the monastery of Kuba. That’s about sixty miles from here. It’s at the head of a valley-there’s a plateau perhaps five miles away. Our informant is a Father Ramsan, a priest. He contacts us by radio, says Basayev only has twenty men with him.”

“So what are you suggesting, Comrade?” Kurbsky asked. “That we put together a hunting party and go after him? We wouldn’t last an hour out there. Every peasant, every shepherd on a crag, are his eyes and ears.”

“You’re absolutely right, but I’m not suggesting you go out by road. By chance, at the Grozny military supply airstrip, there is a Dakota transport plane. Very old, but very reliable, or so I’m informed. It could have you over the Kuba Plateau in no more than an hour one way or the other.”

There was a heavy silence. Bounine said, “You mean the Dakota would land on the plateau?”

“Of course not. I mean you would jump, you idiot. You are paratroopers, are you not? You have jumped into action?”

“Yes, I have, Comrade,” Bounine told him. “And five of my comrades.”

“But I haven’t,” Kurbsky said. “And neither have six of my men. The demands for the war in the last year in Afghanistan meant that a lot of paratroopers didn’t get jump training.”

“Well, that’s just too bad,” Chelek said calmly. “My experts on staff say a pass over that plateau at four hundred feet will have you on the ground in a matter of seconds. The chutes are available, they rig an anchor line in the plane, you clip your static line on it, and you jump out. It’s all automatic. You are the Black Tigers, are you not, and an elite unit?”

“Of course, Comrade,” Kurbsky said. “When would we go?”

“Tomorrow sometime. I’ll arrange for a truck to pick you up from here during the next couple of hours or so. I’ll see you at the airfield tomorrow.”

He called to his men and walked out, and they followed. The Tigers were muttering among themselves, and young Kirov came forward.

“Is it true, this business, Comrade, something about parachuting out of a plane? We couldn’t hear it all. I’ve never had parachute training, and neither have others here.”

“And neither have I,” Kurbsky told him. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, this is the Russian Army, so if General Chelek tells you to jump out of a plane, you do it, even if you don’t have a parachute. Sergeant Bounine’s the expert. You take over, Yuri?”

He sat in the corner, thinking about it, fiddled in his right paratrooper’s boot and found his favorite knife in a secret pocket. It was very old, carved like a Madonna in some kind of bone, and at the press of a button, a blade jumped out, razor sharp. A gutting knife, used by some Caspian fishermen way back in the past. He checked that it was working to perfection, aware of the talk among the men, the anger, then closed the knife and sheathed it again in its secret place.

Bounine came, went behind the bar, got a bottle of vodka, and came back with two glasses. “You might as well get drunk while we’re waiting for the truck,” he announced. “It’ll help when you have to think that tomorrow at some time or other, you’re going to be jumping from that Dakota.”

He gave Kurbsky a glass. “Vodka, Lieutenant?”

“What would I do without you?” Kurbsky said.

THE AIRSTRIP WAS on a section of highway just outside the city, normal road traffic diverted elsewhere. A tented town had sprung up, mixed in with prefabricated buildings on what had originally been farmland. Planes were coming in and out all the time, mainly transport. Everything was makeshift, even what passed as air traffic control.

The pilot was an old hand named Bashir, a contract man brought in for the war. He’d flown in Afghanistan, old Dakotas bought from various Asian sources, workhorses that could fly anywhere. He’d dropped paratroopers during his time in Afghanistan, before helicopters became such an important part of that ill-fated campaign. However, he knew his stuff and had an anchor line rigged before Kurbsky and his men arrived.

He was squat and aging and badly in need of a shave. “There’s nothing to it. You strap on the parachute, clip your static line to the anchor cable, and jump one after the other. You’re on the ground before you know it.”

“Have you ever jumped?” Kirov demanded.

“That isn’t the point.”

Bounine intervened. “This is a waste of time. You wear a helmet and your usual uniform, and help each other to strap on the parachutes. You’ll pack a canvas bag containing weapons and explosives, with a hanging strap clipped to your belt. It lands below you and thumps the ground, letting you know you’re about to land. Very useful in the dark.”