Free Dark Justice by Jack Higgins Page B

pulled up the door, then joined Lacey in the cockpit, where the squadron leader already had the engines rumbling into life.
    "Here we go," Billy said. "Into the bleeding war zone again."
    "Come off it, Billy, you love it."
    Dillon opened his bag and produced Roper's notes. He started to read while Billy worked his way through the Daily Mail. It didn't take long, perhaps twenty minutes, before Dillon was finished.
    "Any good?" Billy asked.
    "Roper does a good job. He should write thrillers." He tossed it across. "Read it and learn what we're up against. The full and active life of Josef Belov."
    IN THE BEGINNING
    JOSEF BELOV

    Chapter 6.
    Once, during the early days of the Chechen War, perhaps 1991, although he could never remember exactly, Josef Belov, a colonel in the KGB and more used to intelligence work, killed five Russian soldiers personally. It happened in this way:
    Belov was head of the KGB's Department 3, concerned with intelligence gathering about the Western world, but Chechnya was something else again, a case of all hands to the pumps, which was why he found himself being driven through the charnel house that was once the Chechen capital.
    He sat in the front seat of an American jeep, of all things, being protected by Special Forces paratroopers, who had procured a large number of the American vehicles because of their proven worth in combat.
    Belov had a corporal driving, and a sergeant standing in the back behind a heavy machine gun mounted on a swivel. He himself had an unusual weapon to hand, an Israeli Uzi machine pistol with one magazine taped to another to allow instant reloading.
    There were refugees everywhere, lots of women and children, some pushing prams loaded with a few pitiful possessions, all screaming in terror at the sounds of battle: artillery shells landing with a crash, buildings collapsing in clouds of dust, helicopters passing overhead firing rockets into Chechen defensive positions.
    None of this bothered Belov, the old Afghan hand. What did was the sight of a number of soldiers crowded around an army truck at the side of the road, who were obviously waiting their turn as a young girl lying back on the driver's seat was in the process of being raped.
    Belov waved a hand, and the jeep stopped. He saw an older woman nearby, her face stained with blood. She struggled free of the man who held her, saw Belov and lurched toward him.
    "Sir, I beg you. My daughter is only thirteen."
    Two soldiers grabbed her again and pulled her back. Belov said, "Let her go."
    They looked crazed, faces filthy and sweat stained. One of them cried, "Who in the hell do you think you are?" and took a pistol from his holster. Belov produced his Uzi, shot him through the head, swung as the other one pulled the woman in front of him and sprayed a short burst, which unfortunately killed the woman as well as the soldier. The others turned in alarm and Belov fired again and again.
    Some of the soldiers started to fire back, and the sergeant returned their fire with the heavy machine gun, scattering men across the sidewalk. The girl was still there, Belov saw her clearly, and then the fuel tank on the truck exploded and the whole thing fireballed. Belov's driver immediately reversed away.
    The sergeant said, "You were right to do that, Colonel. I've got two daughters back there in Moscow."
    "But I haven't. I did it because it was right in the eyes of God. A great man named Oliver Cromwell said that once. A general who turned England into the first republic in Europe." He took out his cigarette tin and extracted one, passing the tin to the others. "Let's get moving. They usually say things get better. In this case . . . I rather doubt that."
    Born in the Ukraine in 1943, Josef Belov had never known his father, a peasant farmer who, like several million other Soviets, had gone away to fight the war against the Nazi invader. He never came back.
    His strong extended family was held together by his mother, and they farmed the