103

Outskirts of Vologda
0648 hrs

The night ride along the endless ribbon of pitted tarmac had been dank and miserable, and so was the truckers’ stop we’d pulled into. A strip of ancient wooden shacks was attached to each side of a filling station. Poor-quality light spilled from their windows and dribbled away into the forest. Power lines drooped between their poles and branched off over the parking area. If it hadn’t been for the Cyrillic signs, I could almost have been in the American Midwest.

I sat on Cuckoo, wet, cold and hungry – all the things I hated – waiting for Anna to come back.

A convoy of military trucks made their way down the other side of the road. Each set of headlights caught the rooster tail of spray thrown up by the one in front. As they drew closer, they slowed and stopped. I heard boots on tarmac before I saw soldiers run into the shops.

I made myself look busy, double-checking all our gear was well strapped down. The first filling station we’d come to must have thought they’d won the state lottery. Besides fuel cans, a small bubble compass and a roll of Sellotape, we’d bought them out of food, water and maps, and even their stock of towing kits.

The maps had been OK for getting us here, but the training area was just shown as a massive stretch of grey. No roads, buildings or even water-courses were marked, and there was no sign in the middle of it saying ‘Proving Ground’. But I had a plan.

I looked up. The convoy would have come from the naval air base Anna said was located about forty K further up the road. That was the direction we were heading when we left here.

The thunder of turboprops rumbled somewhere above the low cloud. Anna had said the base was where long-range aircraft took off to patrol the Atlantic. I knew the ones she was talking about – Antonovs with wingspans as big as B-52s, but props instead of jets. The papers had reported that the Russian crews held up boards with their email addresses on so the Brit interceptors could drop them a line and join their Facebook page.

Anna came out of the nearest shack carrying two paper bags and a couple of large steaming cups. She wasn’t short of admirers, even here. Five or six soldier boys followed close behind. They whistled appreciatively, zipped up their jackets and headed reluctantly for their wagon.

The bag she passed me contained a small loaf of brown bread and a jar of strawberry jam. I broke the loaf in half and scooped jam into it with two fingers. ‘Did you find out where we can get it?’

‘About ten kilometres further up the road.’

I wolfed down the bread and jam between gulps of strong, sweet black tea, then climbed back onto the saddle. Getting aboard Cuckoo was just like straddling a regular bike, except you had to manoeuvre your right leg just ahead of the metal bars connecting it to the sidecar and just behind the air intake for the right cylinder. I liked to be able to move my leg around, and it felt hemmed in by the hardware.

Another invisible aircraft laboured above us as I kick-started the Ural. I hoped the cloud cover hung in there. We needed all the help we could get.