shelves and studied the catch on the front of the first container which consisted of a butterfly screw system that pulled the lid closed as it was turned. He unwound the first pair of latches and forced the halves apart. The hermetically sealed container popped as it opened. Zhilev raised the lid to find it filled with a variety of canned foods, powdered soup, tea and coffee, hard tack biscuits, dried milk and sugar, chewing gum, chocolate and boiled sweets. There were six of these containers, enough food to last four men a month if they kept their calorific intake down to two thousand per day.
Zhilev took out one of the tins to read the label: Meat and Cabbage Stew. He smiled to himself as he remembered the jokes that always accompanied this infamous meal and the fear of being in the confined space after it was consumed, especially with such an exposed toilet. In practice there never was an inordinate amount of noxious methane produced and everyone suspected that was the work of the great National Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Defence Ministry who had toiled relentlessly and no doubt spent millions of roubles to find a way to reduce the foul gaseous odour. It was with much comic relief the men whiled away the time adlibbing the likely conversations between the scientists on the subject of fart reduction in the Russian military, on account of its multitude of tactical disadvantages including noise, smell and flammability.
Zhilev replaced the tin and examined the next and largest container which was filled with water. On top, neatly stacked, were boxes of sterilising tablets and filtration tubes. In the event the team was required to stay longer than two weeks, water could be collected, even from dirty puddles and ditches, and made fit for drinking. The instructions assured one that the filtration system would make their own raw sewage drinkable simply by pouring it in one end, and pumping it out the other, but no one was prepared to try it unless absolutely necessary.
The next shelf contained weapons: eight sub-machine guns with attached suppressors, four for the cache team and another four in case a second team joined them directly prior to the operation. There were also eight semi-automatic pistols, also with silencers, and several boxes of ammunition, the same calibre for both weapons, and a box of hand grenades, a selection of fragmentation and white phosphorus, the latter more useful as an instantaneous smoke-creating device than an incendiary. These were intended for use on target but their secondary purpose was as a replacement for cyanide tablets.
The next stack of cases contained plastic explosives with separate boxes of electrical and igniferous detonators. Another container above those held several hundred yards of detonation cord, slow-burning fuses and mechanical timing devices - mechanical because there were defensive systems that could disable electric timers over a wide area.
The next shelf held several ominous boxes with warning labels on them. Zhilev ran his hand along the seam of one with respect. He knew what was inside and had no intention of opening any of them. The lower box contained a dozen VX nerve-gas dispensers, and the one above, also daubed in warning slogans, contained cylinders of botulism, one gram of which could wipe out a million people if distributed correctly. Six thousand litres of the liquid was theoretically capable of wiping out the planet. Zhilev could never understand why they carried as much as a litre in total, enough to wipe out everyone in Europe let alone England. He was aware it had to do with the distribution system, which was not very effective, but still, Zhilev had a psychological problem with chemical and biological weapons. Perhaps it was his personal experiences at the hands of the experimental scientists.The nerve gas and botulism dispensers were attached to timing devices, the idea being to distribute them in inhabited locations, secured in trees, placed on the roofs of buildings, or dropped into storm drains. One sketch in the operator’s handbook even suggested attaching a dispenser to a dog so that, on activation, the devices would discharge a fine mist of the chemical or biological agent as the animal trotted down the street. The weather would dictate the distribution and hence overall effectiveness, a good wind dispersing it over a wide area being the ideal situation.
Zhilev came to the end of the row and stopped in front of three ordinary-looking suitcases. His heart picked up the pace