Deleted from final manuscript
Kazakhstan, December 1994
The snow was a quiet maelstrom in the headlights of the truck as Zelekhin consulted the map and turned up the heater a notch, noting that the cab was now finally warm enough that his breath was no longer condensing in front of his face. He took a drag on a Belomorkanal, drawing the harsh smoke into his lungs and holding it there for a few contemplative seconds before jetting it in twin puffs out of his nostrils. He reflected on the fact that he’d have to conserve his supply of cigarettes for a piece, since the convoy was taking what he and his comrades called “the scenic route” up through the seemingly endless winding roads up into the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains, into snow, ice, rock, more snow, more ice, trees, more rock, and…more snow.
Winters were harsh here, in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau ranges, and tonight was not exactly an optimal night for transport duty. The convoy had stopped for coffee, tea, and food in Almaty early in the afternoon, which meant that the soldiers in one of the escort trucks got to go in and flirt with the local girls and window shop a little, stretch their legs, and look around at some of the sights. Almaty wasn’t Moscow or Leningrad — well, St. Petersburg again, now — , but it was pretty modern and had some local color. Zelekhin was from Zvenigorod, west of Moscow proper; he was a city kid. He was also an ethnic White Russian, what some called a Great Russian, and, as such, would stick out like a sore thumb in most towns and villages around these parts. As an officer in the Ministry of Defense’s 12th Directorate, Captain Dmitry Zelekhin was, in many respects, representative of the parts of Soviet authority that had not faded with the formal dissolution of the U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union had disbanded nearly three years ago, but a lot of things were basically still the same, including the fact that Zelekhin was growing tired of special weapons duty and thought that there had to be more to life than driving and riding in and getting into and out of big fucking armored trucks, waiting for the next smoke break or chance to break out an ice-cold bottle of Russkaya or Stolichnaya.
Zelekhin’s group had been on the road for two days, after flying into the PVO-Strany interceptor base near the Sary Shagan ABM test area, and relieving another transport crew and security team near one of the older weapons storage areas for the greater military district. The old Soviet regime had tended to take forever to throw anything away, and, although the RSD-10 “Pioneer” intermediate-range nuclear missile system had been taken out of service as a result of the Soviet-American INF Treaty of 1987, warheads for these missiles had been removed from their rockets and placed in storage at a variety of sites around several of the Soviet Republics. Various post-Cold War agreements had led to the prompt relocation of strategic nuclear weapons from bases outside of the Russian Federation to within Russia; the wider dispersal of battlefield and other “tactical” nuclear weapons had meant that this process of consolidation was much more gradual than for more critical, long-range systems. The “Pioneer”, known in NATO parlance as the SS-20 “Saber”, was no longer deployed, but its warheads were still in the long-term inventory of special weapons, and, until such time as they were deployed on another delivery system or placed in the queue for dismantling, they were to be withdrawn to storage.
The 12th Directorate convoy for which Dimitry Zelekhin was a senior officer consisted of two heavy six-wheeler security trucks and one eight-wheeler special transport. The three dark green vehicles were big blocky rectangles, raised high off the ground on their massive tires. Their boxy cabs were surprisingly roomy, and provided more-than-reasonable visibility, although, in this driving snow, the industrial-strength windshield-wipers and defrosters had to work overtime to keep the bullet-resistant windshields clear and unfogged. Both the escort trucks and the special transport were built on modified chassis that were the baseline for many of the GAZ – and MAZ – series military utility vehicles used throughout the Russian and other post-Soviet armed services. They featured reinforced locking mechanisms on doors and hatches, heavier-than-standard armor, and various onboard security-oriented devices to assist with the secure transport of special weapons. 12th Directorate troops were packed into the escort trucks, and a transportation and security crew of 10 men comprised the crew of the weapons transporter. The heavily-armored secure cargo section of the transporter was normally unmanned; all personnel rode forward of the cargo compartment, which was accessible from a small locked hatch forward and an armor-plated, electro-mechanically and directly-mechanically sealed large hatch at the rear of the vehicle. All the rank-and-file troops knew for certain was that they were helping to safeguard nuclear bombs and/or warheads. Zelekhin, his commanding officer, and five other officers and senior warrant officers were aware of the specific weapon types and numbers in their charge.
Right now the transporter was ferrying six medium-yield thermonuclear warheads, the full combat load for two RSD-10s/SS-20s. Each device was rated at 150 kilotons — roughly 12 times the yield of the American U-235 “Little Boy” atomic bomb that had annihilated most of Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of the Great Patriotic War. So, this one transporter truck was currently carrying 72 times the destructive power that wiped out an urban center and promptly killed about 80,000 people back in 1945.
Zelekhin grimaced slightly and took another pull on his cigarette. Mother of God, Christ Jesus and all the Hosts of Saints, what a fucked-up world we live in, he thought, ruminating on the kind of civilization-murdering ability he and his men, and their opposites in America and the West and elsewhere, helped to police. Captain Zelekhin of the Russian Federation Army understood deterrence theory with the cool detachment of a top-flight graduate of the Frunze Military Academy. Dimitry Alexeivich Zelekhin, husband of Yekaterina Petrovna and father of eight-year-old Pyotr and five-year-old Valentina, recognized the fundamental horror of the monster he helped keep on a leash.
The smoke from the Belomorkanal drifted in the cabin, gradually whirling into the cabin’s ventilation fan. The driver this shift, Senior Praporshchik Mikhail Bulanov, was the most senior non-commissioned officer in the convoy. He was 28, only five years younger than Zelekhin, and his almost-white blond hair, ice-blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks had made the nickname [ Детское лицо ] — “Baby-Face” a perhaps inevitable tag for him. For the most part, the men respected him, and [ Детское лицо ] was used in good humor. “Those are some of the strongest cigarettes around, Captain,” Bulanov commented with a smile. “Yevgeny Slotkin over on Third Team smokes these ungodly-stinking Turkish things. Now, those smell like somebody set fire to a bunch of old furniture. At least yours have some good character.”
Zelekhin chuckled. “I am suffused with joy from your approval of my smoking habits, Praporshchik. Be sure to keep your eyes on the road, comrade driver.” The snow wasn’t the worst sort of blizzard this region could throw at them, but it could certainly cause problems for an unwary or inexperienced driver. Fortunately, Bulanov was neither of these things. He’d been in Twelfth Directorate for about six years, after serving in the regular Army for four. He’d actually seen combat in Afghanistan, during the last phase of that most unfortunate war. As had Zelekhin, Bulanov had been in the Komsomol and in the Young Pioneers before that. He, like his fellows, was a patriot. Marxism-Leninism was not exactly on the rise anymore, but the Rodina was home, breadbasket, mother, hearth, country. While his family had lacked the connections to help him gain an appointment to a top civilian university or military officer training academy, Bulanov had still been a good Communist and had stepped up to defend the country and its official ideology.
Zelekhin looked at the road map again. “We’re about 25 kilometers from the next check-in point. In this weather…say, half an hour to 40 minutes. The men can get a break in the next couple of hours. We’ll reach the control area in…about eight hours, assuming the weather stays like this and we don’t encounter any other adverse conditions.”
Bulanov nodded. “Right now the snow’s steady; it’s not too bad. It’ll accumulate, of course. Best for us to be out of these mountain passes before too long; we’ll have to call in a plow if we get stuck in this crap.” He turned the truck’s big wheel gradually as he negotiated a wide turn in the road’s slight uphill grade. The ultra-bright cones of the truck’s headlights swept over the thick boughs of evergreens that were a silent ocean on the hills and mountainsides all through this area outside of Almaty. Trees, mountains and hillsides, meadows and valleys, rivers…the region was truly a beautiful place. Some of the world’s last and greatest wild stands of apple trees grew out here. In the dual cloak of night and snow, the untamed landscape around the convoy was largely invisible. Zelekhin had a fleeting sense of regret that his current job didn’t really allow him to spend a lot of time sightseeing, but he paid attention to what he could. Yekaterina would love this sort of country, he mused. Perhaps, when I have some more leave coming, I could arrange a couple of weeks’ holiday down here. It would have to be in the spring or summer, of course. We could hike and picnic and look up at the stars and drink wine and dream of the future.
He shook himself out of his reverie, looking at the map again. A communications check-in, a lot more driving, and a stopover at a control point — essentially, a specialized garrison. As a rule, the convoy teams switched drivers every three hours. There was some leeway, but operational doctrine and regulations were only so flexible. Major Stolkanov would want a formal driver switch for all three vehicles well before they reached their control point; when they finally arrived, they would fuel up, have a proper meal in an actual mess hall, and the convoy personnel would have a chance for a stretch and a rest. Bumping and jolting around in the cabs and cabins of heavy Defense Ministry trucks for hours and hours was not the most comfortable of duties, and troops who were cooped up for too long in such conditions could also get lazy. Laziness and special weapons did not mix well.
The three big trucks wound their way along the road that twisted through the forested mountains, occasionally startling a deer or rabbit, which would bolt out of the illuminative range of headlights. All three vehicles’ cab crews periodically conducted radio checks, which helped to break the monotony. Bulanov and Zelekhin talked politics and sports, mostly the latter. The escort trucks and the special transport roared and grumbled their way along, their heavy-duty suspension and shock-absorbers reducing all but the roughest portions of the snowswept road to minor vibrations and jolts. The intermittent crackle and chatter of the trucks’ radios and the deep rumble of shifting transmission gears were familiar and even comforting, and the heaters made the trucks’ interiors actually somewhat pleasant. Zelekhin shifted in his seat, allowing his head to tilt back against the headrest. He closed his eyes and thought of his family. His current duty rotation meant not seeing them for at least three more weeks. There were two more weapons convoy missions to supervise. Then he could catch a military transport back to Chkalovsky Military Airport or grab a seat on a civilian flight to Sheremetyevo. Pyotr was increasingly excited by toys and model kits of various military machines, and Zelekhin thought it would be fun to build a couple of miniature tanks or MiG or Sukhoi fighters with the boy. Valentina’s first dance recital was coming up soon, as well. And certainly, Yekaterina and he needed time together.
The trucks had completed a long and gradual climb and were now on a relatively level stretch of terrain. Soon they would begin a steady descent through a series of switchbacks and spirals. Every once in a while, a heavy logging truck or large general cargo lorry would trundle by, headed back the way the convoy had come. For the most part, however, the convoy had the road to itself and the occasional forest wildlife. Zelekhin smiled as he saw a pair of deer race up the sharp incline on the left side of the roadway, disappearing into the snow and the darkness like ghosts. Bulanov offered him some coffee from a monstrous thermos. He accepted gladly, savoring the heat and the caffeine. “So, comrade soldier, what do you plan to do on your next leave? You have a girlfriend in Moscow, yes?”
“I do, Captain. She’s very nice. University student. Svetlana.”
“A pretty and musical name. How’d you two meet?”
“My brother Stepan was throwing a big party for one of his friends, and Svetlana was one of the other guests. Stepan’s finishing his degree at Moscow State University, and all of his university friends are a little wet behind the ears. Nice enough, to be sure, but most of them haven’t been knocked down by life very much yet. Svetlana, on the other hand, seems to have some real maturity. She sings and plays guitar, and is a fair poet too.” Bulanov smiled. “She has great dreams of visiting Europe, and even America.”
“Ah! A cosmopolitan young woman. How long have you two been going out?”
“A little over six months. She’ll be finishing her degree this coming spring. After that, who knows? She is making noises about graduate school. She certainly has the marks for it.” Zelekhin passed the thermos back over to him. He nodded thanks and managed to keep steering with one hand while filling a cup. Zelekhin capped the thermos, as Bulanov shifted the truck’s gears once more, downshifting as the convoy approached the beginning of the road’s downgrade. The snowfall was a white curtain of constancy, and the convoy’s headlights transformed their surroundings into something almost otherworldly; the trucks could almost seem to be cruising around underwater or in some crazy region of outer space. A group of rabbits darted off the road, kicking up little explosions of snow.
“I hope I’ll get to see her on my next leave,” continued Bulanov. “Her parents actually like me, apparently. That I shall take as a good sign.”
“Without a doubt.” The two settled into another long silence, which remained unbroken by anything more than the intermittent communications check and the noises of the truck itself for many miles. The convoy rumbled along, winding and twisting through the mountains and hills. An image came to Zelekhin’s mind of their trio of vehicles as seen from a great height, the group’s headlight beams, little spears of illumination in an indifferent darkness, glittering in a vastness of falling white curtained by night. The Trans-Ili Alatau was a vast, vast wilderness, and, despite the enormous power his little band was carrying, Zelekhin could, if he extended his mental picture, feel himself to be very, very small. Getting quite philosophical, Captain, he thought with a wry smile. But, yes, all of us are, ultimately, very small.
They were driving into a relatively broad and shallow valley; there were low gradual embankments that fell away from both sides of the wide two-lane road. Trees were still in abundance along this part of their route; some of the big oaks and pines must be hundreds of years old. The road’s downgrade was now reduced again to nearly zero; up ahead — at least according to the map — their route would soon go back to a lot of turns and switchbacks from the near-straightaway they were currently traversing. They were still a considerable distance from the between-shift control point, but, barring any unexpected vehicle trouble or major road obstruction, the convoy should reach its goal on time and with the cargo secure.
Bulanov was talking about a couple of the greater St. Petersburg-area football teams when they got a call from the main transport. “I’ve got it,” said Zelekhin as he pulled the handset off its dashboard cradle. “Lieutenant? What is it?”
“We think we see some light up ahead, Captain. I’m looking through the cab periscope and I’m pretty sure I see a fire. Hard to tell, sir, but I’m estimating 500 to 600 meters in front of us.” Lieutenant Grigory Vygotsky sounded crisp and alert, but also barely old enough to shave.
“All right, Lieutenant. Hold on a moment.” Zelekhin looked over at Bulanov. “Do you see any light up there? Other than our own headlights?”
Bulanov leaned forward, squinting. “Uh, just a second, Captain.” He nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I think so, sir. A fire?”
“That’s what Vygotsky thinks, too.” Zelekhin switched over to the all-vehicle open frequency. “Attention, convoy. Possible obstacle up ahead. Perhaps a fire. Major Stolkanov, I recommend we reduce speed and stop short if there is indeed something up there.”
“Agreed, Captain,” responded the major. “Sentry units, check your weapons and radios. This could just be some locals having a bonfire. It might be something else. We’ll need a quick reconnoiter. Stand by.” There was a pause. “All vehicles, prepare to stop on my command.”
At the reduced distance, a fire indeed made its presence known through the heavy snowfall. It looked sizeable. Bulanov was shaking his head. “It looks as if it’s concentrated on the right-hand embankment, down and off the road. But what’s — “
Then they saw it. Strewn across much of the road in front of them was a bunch of heavy timber. Tilted on its side was a huge lumber-carrying truck, its cab pointed towards them. Facing away from the convoy, plunged off the roadside, was a large tanker truck. The tractor section was in flames.
“Trucks! An accident! Stop the convoy!” Zelekhin was already unbuckling his seatbelt and checking his 9-millimeter Makarov sidearm. The grumbling of the big trucks’ gears and the whooshing of brakes filled his ears even as he could hear Major Stolkanov calling his own all-stop order over the radio. The truck was still rolling slightly back from its halt as Zelekhin’s boots crunched into the snow. He heard shouted commands behind him as sentry teams piled out of the rear escort truck and from the back of his own vehicle.
From his point of view, it looked as if the logging truck had jackknifed while negotiating the curve in the road, and its flatbed assembly had turned over and lost its load of tons of logs, which had either impacted the fuel truck or forced the truck’s driver to swerve off the road. Now his brain registered shouts from the front of the whole tableau.
“Help, friend! Please! The other driver’s in a bad way, and those flames are spreading!” A big burly man in industrial overalls and heavy boots came jogging towards him, dodging around all the scattered lumber. His features were hard to make out as he was backlit by the burning truck.
“What’s he carrying? Oil? Petrol?” Zelekhin thought of the tanker and what might happen if its cargo exploded. The special weapons vehicle would undoubtedly withstand fragmentation and concussion; it was over 150 meters behind him. The escort trucks were also designed to put up with brutal accidents and extensive combat damage. But the size of that tanker…
“I think he said fuel oil — I got him out of the cab before the engine caught fire. Still, he’s a mess. He needs help.” The big man looked back at the wreckage and flames. “Great Christ. A patch of black ice, something — I don’t know what the hell happened. I just lost all control of the damn truck!” Other members of the sentry team had reached them. “Fire extinguishers, Captain?” one of them asked, eyes wide at the growing inferno.
“Immediately — medical kit as well. Keep everyone else away from that God-damned fuel truck!” Zelekhin turned back to the driver. “Where is he?”
“This way!”
“Wait! You, soldier — Priabin, isn’t it? Collect Corpsman Yuri and first aid supplies and go with this man. Someone needs attending to over there.” The young soldier nodded and sprinted back towards their trucks, shouting for Yuri Teleschenko, the convoy’s fully-trained medic. Zelekhin grabbed his hand-held off his belt. “Major, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get around this mess. Recommend we form a secure perimeter while we render aid.”
“Confirmed, Captain Zelekhin. Deploy ground flares and disperse combat squads to both sides of the road behind us. I want sentries on both sides of the special transport. All drivers remain in the cabs at all times, ready to roll. I don’t like sitting here like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“Understood, Comrade Major. We’d better try to get that fire under control. We’re not even sure what’s in the tanker. I’ll see if we can get close enough to note serial numbers and vehicle registration as well; we can radio that in and get some information about what he’s loaded with.”
“Good. I’ll check the systems on the transport.” Half a dozen of their teammates came trotting through with extinguishers. “No heroics!” yelled Zelekhin. “If it looks like it’s getting too close to that set of tanks, get the hell out of the way!” There were muffled shouts of acknowledgment as the soldiers moved in to attack the fire. The truck portion of truck-and-tanker was fully involved; black, oily smoke was boiling up from the burning and melting truck tires. The soldiers concentrated the extinguishers’ output on the rear of the chassis, working to blanket the side-by-side gas tanks.
“Major?” The voice of young Lieutenant Vygotsky crackled over the radio’s all-vehicle local channel. “Major, I’m hailing the regional command communications station, but I’m getting no reply — “
“Have the unit cycle through the frequencies again, Lieutenant,” replied Stolkanov. “Our antennae should be fine. Probably some frequency drift. It’ll lock in.” Zelekhin continued to listen to the exchange, while something nagged him. He couldn’t place it. As he watched men dropping emergency flares and others forming the rearward sentry teams, unslinging their Kalashnikovs and beginning to scan the surrounding terrain, the nagging persisted. Our communications check-in was fine. We’ve had no malfunctions. If anything, the local terrain on this stretch is less likely to screw with transmission and reception than all those mountains and all that rock and such back there would.
Radio communications should be fine. Unless…
Someone is jamming our long-range radios.
The first explosion registered in the hazy periphery of his senses as he seemed to move slowly, as in a nightmare. He had been turning back to survey the wreckage in front of the convoy, the truck on fire, and his comrades blasting away with the heavy extinguishers when the convoy’s rear escort truck’s back end was lifted off the asphalt by a colossal detonation. The sudden blossoming of fire had been only fleetingly preceded by a deep boom and a hissing sound. Zelekhin turned back to see the rear truck come bouncing back down, fragments of its outer body skittering and skipping across the road and into the nearby hillocks and snowbanks. At least two men in proximity to the truck’s right rear quarter were shredded like wet paper. The blast’s concussion blew several others completely off the road. The noise had been so overwhelming and so abrupt that it felt like several seconds had elapsed before Zelekhin even recognized the first sounds of screams and gunfire. The distinctive chatter of AK-47s being fired on single-shot and fully-automatic settings was tangled with hoarse shouts and mindless-sounding shrieks of pain.
Private Priabin and Corpsman Yuri had just reached the front end of the tipped-over logging lorry when their escort, the burly truck driver, stopped short, turned around, and shot Yuri in the face. There was an explosion of gore and the medic dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Priabin barely had time to realize what was happening. The driver swung his arm in an almost mechanical arc and fired the 9-millimeter pistol a second time. The round went through Priabin’s right eye socket and shattered his skull. He dropped stupidly to his knees and then pitched forward onto the road.
Zelekhin’s instincts all screamed at him to protect the special weapons. He ran for his truck, stopping to grab a dead man’s dropped Kalashnikov AK-47. He heard desperate commands and screams for help all around him. Everything was a blur of light and sound: The bright red and pink sparkling of the road flares, the muzzle flashes as remaining defenders peppered the night- and snow-shrouded landscape with bullets, the chatchatchatchat—chitta-chitta-chat of the assault rifles and metallic tinkling of shell casings hitting ice and pavement. And the screams. Everywhere, it seemed, were the screams.
This time, he saw the anti-tank rocket fired. It came from a launch position just inside the treeline to the convoy’s right, perhaps one hundred meters from the road. There was a brilliant flash and a kind of smoky backblast. Somewhere in the back of his mind, processing the situation with a kind of fatalistic detachment, Zelekhin made the educated guess that the weapon was a Russian AT-6 (NATO classification — designated “Spiral”) man-portable anti-tank system. He threw himself flat, reaching ground at just about the same time that the anti-tank round hit his truck. He’d had one last glimpse of Bulanov’s silhouette as seen through the truck cab’s wide windshield. Then he was face-down, every bone in his body singing with the explosion’s concussion. New waves of heat washed over him. He raised his head to try to get another look at what was happening.
The heavy escort truck had been blown sideways, skidding laterally. The entire front end was mangled and engulfed in fire. Oh, poor Baby-Face. You never got to see Svetlana again. There was a series of deeper, more purposeful-sounding explosions. Grenades. He rolled over, bringing the Kalashnikov to his chest and checking its magazine and safety. The dead Twelfth Directorate soldier to whom this weapon had belonged had clearly cared properly for it. For a brief moment, Zelekhin was overwhelmed by a sense of desperate pride in the men under his command.
Maybe Zelekhin could still accomplish some good with it.
There were fewer shouts and screams, but the gunfire was still prodigious. He crawled to the convoy’s left, scrambling to reach the roadside and the low slope beyond. He hit the slope and rolled, sliding like a sled and ending up prone and facing the road. He heard the ping and twang of some ricochets off vehicle sides and road. A quick left-to-right sweep revealed a scene straight out of hell. Flaming and smoking debris and bullet-riddled corpses were everywhere. His view of the staged accident scene was largely unobstructed, but he couldn’t just stick around gawking like an idiot. He needed to find cover, from which he could kill as many of these sons-of-bitches as he was able. He surmised that no adversary was directly behind him, as he was still alive. The two anti-tank rockets had been fired from the treeline directly opposite. He could make out the intermittent sparking of muzzle flash from somewhere in the vicinity of the second anti-tank shooter’s position. They’ve knocked out both escort trucks but apparently don’t want to risk any really heavy ordnance on the special transport. This must be a hijacking. There is no other reasonable explanation.
From what he could see and hear, most of the small-arms fire was coming from his right, an area that was largely masked from him by the burning wreckage of the convoy escort trucks. Any damage he could discern on the special transport appeared to be superficial. Again, hijackers would need to use a little more finesse to crack a truck carrying a payload such as this one’s. There was no apparent movement from the faked-up accident site. Just before the attack, six of his men had been attempting to fight the fire. Apparently, they were all dead or incapacitated. There had been 42 men in the convoy — two in each truck’s forward cab compartment, two full squads of sentries in each escort truck, and support personnel and driving crew in the weapons carrier. The attackers had waited until the majority of personnel had left the escort vehicles. Men in the open were either already dead or would soon be so, without cover or backup.
Zelekhin’s opportunity came within a few seconds. In the shifting light of all the flames, he caught movement from the treeline off the opposite side of the road. Several figures in what looked to be charcoal-gray or off-white camouflage winter warfare suits were running across the open ground. He counted seven people. All wore ski masks. There were more gun reports — pistol and automatic rifle fire. Two of the figures dropped into the snow. At least two more of the figures were brandishing what looked to be submachine guns, maybe OTS-02s. They each dropped to one knee and returned fire. The two camouflaged men who’d fallen staggered to their feet; one seemed to be in worse shape than the other, supported by a fellow attacker. Body armor of some kind?
Whoever’d been firing had apparently been silenced. The camouflaged men made their way up the shallow slope to the road and towards the weapons carrier. Two of the men, including one of the two who’d apparently been hit, were carrying large satchels.
Dimitry Zelekhin took stock of things. A stray round or a piece of shrapnel had destroyed his radio. On the other hand, he now had a fully-functional AK-47, with what appeared to be 30 rounds of ammunition. He had his Makarov, which held 10 rounds. He had three more 10-round magazines in his belt pouches. He had his combat knife. And he very likely had the advantage of surprise. He was alive. He was a patriot. And he would resist any efforts by anyone to steal such horrifically destructive weapons with his last ounce of strength, his final drop of blood. For Yekaterina. For Pyotr. For Valentina. For all his countrymen. For yes, even all the world. Even the fucking Americans.
He came up fast, using the burning remains of his former escort truck for cover. He popped around the front right, sighted on the first two figures who were standing alongside the weapons carrier’s right side, selected full auto, and let off two quick bursts. Three rounds hit the first man, spaced almost evenly across the chest. He spun around, crashing into his companion even as that man’s head exploded. Zelekhin had always made stratospheric scores in marksmanship. And now, this was not some All-Academies championship or scored field shooting evaluation. This was beyond real, and every last shot had to count.
There were more shouts, and at least two bullets spanged off the side of Zelekhin’s dead transport. They would try to outflank him. He had to be as aggressive as possible and work his way forward, before anyone could work their way behind him, on either side. He checked right and behind him. No movement. He went around the left front corner of the remains of the truck’s cab, trying not to think about the remains of Baby-Face burning away up there. The truck’s wreckage was still very much on fire and incredibly hot. Well, if the hijackers had infrared or other night-vision scopes, the fire would dazzle those. He crouched, looking under the remains of the truck. There was a lot of debris and not much clear line of sight, but that also meant he was less likely to be spotted and cut down from underneath what was left of the truck. He moved quickly and purposefully. In close quarters, with little cover, one must move fast. Don’t waste energy; do not hesitate.
He reached the rear of the truck. There was one assailant moving at a quick trot, clearly intent upon using this same wreckage as cover. However, he had hesitated, and Zelekhin shot him in his tracks. Three of the seven that he had seen were down. Four to one. Well, at least two direct ancestors of his had faced odds worse than those at Stalingrad, fighting the cruelly scientific and efficient Nazi hordes. Soldiers of the Rodina had literally waited until their own clothes were smoldering from fires all around them before withdrawing from positions during the siege.
Partially visible behind the weapons carrier was the burning hulk of the second escort vehicle. The crumpled forms of Twelfth Directorate troops littered the road all around. Fire was snaking its way between and among wreckage and bodies, as fuel spilled from the shattered trucks and ignited. If there are indeed only four of them left, then they will perhaps be busy attempting to open the transport’s armored rear hatch. They know I am coming. I must move now.
He had perhaps 20 rounds left in the rifle. His pistol was as yet unfired. He looked quickly across at the weapons carrier truck. The cab was intact, but only the emergency interior lights were on. There were spider-web cracks and pockmarks from bullet impacts all across the windshield. The headlamps had been shot out. The cab’s side doors appeared to be shut. Unless some attackers had managed to get access to the cab, his fellow soldiers might be hunkered down out of sight, ready to engage any intruders. If such a thing were to be possible, he needed to buy them time. He heard terse conversation in Russian at the rear of the big transport. He caught enough of the words to understand that the murdering bastards were going to use explosives on the rear hatch.
He was out of time.
He surged forward, bringing the Kalashnikov to waist height, stock against his hip. One of the camouflaged men came around the left rear corner of the carrier, already shooting. The submachine gun burst went mostly wide, but Zelekhin felt a strong sharp impact on his side. The rifle chattered again, and his assailant pitched backward, legs skidding out in front of him as the string of 7.62-millimeter rounds clotheslined him. His weapon clattered to the ground — Zelekhin could see now that it was, in fact, an OTS-02 Kiparis. Three of these assholes left. Only three more, God willing.
He was now about halfway along the length of the transport. He stopped and dropped into a crouch alongside one of the truck’s monstrous wheels. He winced as what he suspected was a through-and-through bullet wound began to make its presence known. His hand came away from his flank hot and wet. Quite a lot of blood, but apparently coming from well below the ribcage on his right side. One thing was sure; his life would end. Whether that was in seconds or in decades, he would die on his own terms. He peered under the truck, straining to see towards the back, and could only make out one pair of legs. Two men are most likely up on the back of the truck, attaching charges to the hatch. All right, now, Dimitry Alexeivich — you must flip the Devil the bird, and kill these fuckers absolutely dead.
He was scant meters away.
He charged.
He had the Kalashnikov up against his right shoulder. The man came around the truck. Zelekhin emptied the clip, punching the opponent full of holes; he had dropped the rifle and pulled his sidearm from its holster even before his attacker’s body had completely sprawled on the road. He assumed a two-handed shooting stance and cut right, out and away from the truck, pivoting as he ran.
The first man, the one closest, was dropping off the back of the big transport truck, swinging up his submachine gun. By the time he fully realized that his quarry was already well to the left, Zelekhin had put three rounds into him, two in the center of mass and one almost exactly between the eyes. He stumbled backward, dead before his nervous system had time to fully record this fact. The body toppled onto its back.
“Zamoroz’te! Ubiraytes’ ot gruzovika!” [“Freeze! Step off of and back away from the truck!”] The barrel of Zelekhin’s Makarov was like the finger of God, rock-steady and pointed directly at the chest of the man in camouflage, who was perched on the utility step of the transport’s back end. “Ty slyshal menya, sukin syn? S gruzovikom, TEPER’!” [“Did you hear me, you son of a bitch? Off the truck, NOW!!!”] The man stepped almost jauntily off the back of the armored vehicle, slowly snagging the carry-strap of his OTS-02 with his thumb, clearing the strap from his shoulder and letting the gun drop to the pavement. He put his hands in the air, interlaced his fingers and then placed his hands on his head. He said nothing.
“Kto ty? Russkaya mafiya? Nayemniki? [“Who are you? Russian Mafia? Mercenaries?”] Zelekhin took in as many visual details as he could, snatching quick glances away from his prisoner, to the back of the truck, the bodies of friends and enemies nearby, the burning and smoldering wreckage. If he survived this, every last bit of information he could provide his superiors might help prevent such an awful cluster-fuck from ever happening again.
Still, the man said nothing.
“Khorosho, togda my prosto syadem zdes’, poka kto-to ne poydet dal’she. Nekotoryye iz moikh druzey nakhodyatsya v gruzovike pozadi vas. Drugiye, nesomnenno, skoro pridut. Vozmozhno, vy takzhe smozhete sotrudnichat’.” [“Okay, then, we’ll just sit here until someone happens along. Some of my friends are in the truck behind you. Others will no doubt be on their way soon. You might as well cooperate.”] Zelekhin could tell that his bullet wound was bad, but probably not immediately life-threatening. He needed to secure the prisoner, make sure he didn’t have any backup weapons or hidden tools or communications gear, and then determine if anyone was indeed still alive inside the transport. Protocol dictated that, in the event of an attack such as this, the driving and weapons support crew were to batten down the hatches, break out their weapons, and sit tight until reinforcements could neutralize any threats from outside the vehicle. They were to use every means at their disposal to stop any intruders from compromising the vehicle or its contents. He moved forward slowly, the gun never wavering so much as half a centimeter in any direction. He kicked his charge’s submachine gun away, under the truck.
Zelekhin had just told the prisoner to turn around and slowly walk along the right side of the transport, towards the front of the vehicle, and had stepped up behind him and to the side, when the world blew up. He felt oddly numb and disoriented. He was apparently very far away or under water or wrapped in thick cotton because he felt less and less contact with the ground, his body, or temperatures either hot or cold. Sensation was draining away. Everything was sideways. He saw an indistinct shape come into somewhat more focus, as it walked sideways towards him. It was the truck driver with the sob story, the one who had just helped to kill an entire special convoy team. Zelekhin’s special convoy team. His team. His men. His responsibility. He understood now that he had done what he could; he had done his duty, he had fought, harder than anyone could expect or demand. But he would not go backpacking or apple picking with his bride here in the Almaty region, he would not build more model kits with his son or bring a bouquet of flowers and a giant hug to his little girl at any of her dance recitals, and he would not see his children become adults and parents of his and his wife’s grandchildren. It was becoming very dark and very quiet.
As Russian Army Captain Dimitry Alexeivich Zelekhin lay under the falling snow, and finally succumbed to the massive gunshot wound to the right hemisphere of his brain, he was certain that he heard more conversation in Russian. He plunged into a timeless and dimensionless blackness, and his consciousness disassociated like melting snowflakes. The last words he heard were spoken in absolutely accentless North American English.
* * * * *
Two big earthmovers crashed out of their place of concealment in the trees at the road’s curve, pushing the logging truck and its spilled cargo off the road. More camouflaged figures materialized out of the woods. Within just under ten minutes, all corpses and pieces of corpses had been dragged and tossed off the roadway, and all major debris was cleared by the big machines. The still-burning hulks of the convoy escort trucks were shoved off the road as well. The sapper team finished wiring the charges to the transport’s heavy rear door and blew it off its armored hinges. Shaped charges had killed everyone in the forward compartments of the truck.
Teams of men moved about among the carnage now deposited on the roadsides and on the sloping road shoulders, dousing the bodies with kerosene poured from jerrycans and setting them ablaze. There were the occasional sharp cracks of pistol shots as the teams ensured that there were absolutely no witnesses remaining. Near the weapons carrier, two men in dark snowsuits were engaged in intense conversation with someone, using a military-grade field radio. Soon a deep bass throbbing could be heard and felt all around the road-bend. Bright spotlights shot down from over the nearest treetops as first one, then two Mil Mi-8 “Hip” heavy helicopters, their gargantuan rotor-wash generating a virtual hurricane of snow and smoke, cruised over the traumatized stretch of road, swept around, and took up station, hovering close by between the trees and the road’s right-hand lane. Both of the giant machines were configured for cargo-lifting operations.
Large, round forest-green stainless steel containers, with military-style stenciling on their flanks, were being hoisted out of the rear of the transport truck. Each container was a basic cylinder approximately one meter in diameter and two-and-a-half meters in length. “This-End-Up” arrows and cautionary text and graphics were neatly displayed in Cyrillic lettering. The containers were heavily padded with foam and rubber. The international black and yellow symbol indicating radiation hazard was placed at both ends of each, as well as at regular intervals around the circumference, where it absolutely could not be missed by any viewer. Each container was festooned with block alphanumerics. There were six containers. Each container housed a single SS-20 warhead.
Motorized forklifts were detached from each Mi-8, as were large metal carry-pallets. First one “Hip” moved into position, and three containers were rapidly forklifted onto three matching pallets, chained and lashed down. The pallets were then hoisted into position on the helicopter’s lifting cradle. The forklift was motored over and reattached to the “Hip”. The rotary-wing heavy lifter powered its engines up and the craft pulled away, up and over the nearest trees. The second “Hip” took the next three as the remaining forklift was secured. Even as it lifted off and into the swirling miasma of snow, the men in the winter warfare suits and the pair of black-clad figures with the radio were heading for the surrounding forest. Several left the scene on snowmobiles which had been concealed far back under the trees. A few got into a pair of enclosed-cabin tracked vehicles and headed up and away into the higher forest, towards an old railroad maintenance and service road a couple of kilometers to the south.
Half a dozen men stayed behind, placing more explosive charges in and around the transport truck, once they had driven it off the road, as well as throughout the area where the truck accident had been staged. Two men drove the earthmovers back into the forest, shut them off, and abandoned them. They would not be noticed for a while, and, by the time they were, it wouldn’t matter.
The last members of the team hiked out and away from the road-bend, making their way along about a kilometer-and-a-half of cross-country ski trail that ran north-by-northeast. When the leader of the cleanup crew triggered the radio detonator, he and his cohorts could see the flashes of the explosions far down through the forest, back by the highway. The team leader had switched off and pocketed the detonator and consulted his watch. That had been 2338 hours. It was 0043 hours now. The convoy had been stopped at 2303 hours local time. The helicopters had left with the cargo by 2326 hours. Two phony police cars, six “cops”, and some sawhorses to temporarily block the highway 15 klicks from the road bend in both directions…cheap, easy, and almost totally idiot-proof. Some yokels and some long-haul truck drivers had been mildly inconvenienced, to the tune of about…let’s see — 52 minutes.
And, again, by the time anyone might really understand what had gone on, it would be too late anyway. Theatrical policemen and fake cop cars and sawhorses were all like disappearing magic-show actors and props. Now you see ‘em, now you don’t. He gave a soft whistle. The rest of the team ceased their whispered discussions. He said a few words, telling them to get ready to get back on the trail and head for the nearby village where their wheels awaited them. The team leader smiled. Now that there was actual private tourism in the former Evil Empire, it was possible to rent — or even buy — vehicles that weren’t Soviet-made pieces of shit. Yeah, a Mercedes SUV. With heated and adjustable power seats. And a CD player with Jensen speakers. It was a brave new world, and so much was possible.
23 active minutes for the heist of the ages. Not bad.
Not bad at all.