Red Ken, Tenny and I had spent most of ’86 running around the mountains with the men in beards. The Regiment dropped every bridge that came within reach so the Russian armoured convoys couldn’t move around the place. Then we built IEDs to blow them to pieces if they did. Dex was busy doing supply runs for the muj when he wasn’t ferrying us.
Even in those days, the level of Soviet corruption had been outrageous. Dex brought back shed-loads of brand-new Russian weapons and equipment that had been sold by their high command. Most of it ended up being used against their own twenty-year-old conscripts. These kids were dropping by the hundred every day.
Now the entire Soviet bloc was in meltdown, the East Germans were going for it big-time. They were flogging as many military secrets as they could get their hands on. Even the Stasi, the state secret police, were doing a roaring trade in secret documents. Anything to bring in a few dollars before the whole system went to rat shit. The West encouraged it. Once the Wall fell, a new world order would have to be fought over – and if we didn’t grab as much technology and intelligence aswe could while the going was good, there were plenty of other buyers in the queue. We had to know what kit was about to flood the market so we could build better stuff to defend against it.
Red Ken and Tenny had been seconded to Brixmis, the British Commanders-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet forces in Germany. They’d needed another body for this particular job and had given Hereford a call to see if I was available. These two were tighter with each other than with me, but we’d always liked working together.