Daniel 06 - Home Runs
“Boryslav Kulyk has a lot of explaining to do.” Spiker said. “If he looks anything like you in real life, his career is down the toilet.”
Approaching Kostyantynopil’ it was slow well outside the town but Gorlubev wasn’t one to ignore his position and our collective authority. With blue lights and bleeps of the siren we slowly carved through the stationary traffic towards the roadblock.
We need the ranking soldier. He’ll be in the middle doing fuck all. Winning him over will open up the whole block. They might be able to radio ahead to the next one. My army boys in the vans will be able to help.
As we reached the barrier, two boyish soldiers engaged Gorlubev and Aslanov. I got out and strolled over with a kind of swagger to take over the conversation and push my SBU credentials.
“SBU, Special Department. Kulyk, Boryslav Kulyk. Sergeant Gorlubev’s looking after us tonight. We’re Army Logistics delivering to units further east. Can I speak to your Sergeant? Officer? Who’s on tonight?”
“Sergeant Markovich,” said the first Soldat. He moved back and shouted past our vehicles into the checkpoint centre, waving, then beckoning. They had no radio. “He’s coming.”
Markovich was late thirties, cropped mid hair, probably a hit with the ladies judging by his strong jawline. Sergeant tabs on his front and shoulders, no name patch. No extremist signs.
“Yes, what’s the situation?” was his matter-of-fact opening.
“We’re on a military supply run to Army units further east. I’m sure you’ve seen this before?” I said. I moved into the view of Ol and waved him over. As a Captain he outranked all of the people here.
“What supplies?”
“Your favourite kind of fireworks.” I cocked my head and raised my eyebrows, by which time Ol appeared with a new demeanour. He was upright, chest out, serious in expression.
“Evening gentlemen…” The three soldiers tensed on seeing him and snapped to, each saluting out of time. Ol returned the gesture and gave a slight nod, maintaining a slightly tight-lipped look of severity. “Thank you. Well, Sergeant, we’re… Is there an Officer here or… are you it?” Ol was slightly condescending. Officers don’t defer. They don’t need to unless they’re shit or in the shit and even then, they’re still technically superior. Before Markovich could answer, Ol pulled out his phone, took Markovich aside and showed him what were probably the orders for the gear. “We’re Log out of Dnipro. There’s two Lieutenants back there. I’d rather they stay with the vehicles. Kulyk here is our SBU escort the whole way. Gorlubev escorting along the N15. Need to keep heading east…” Ol shouted over, “I’m just going to give the nice Sergeant a quick look!” Ol looked underwhelmed and slightly fucked off, but his tone was tolerant. He was trying to drive the whole tempo and steer Markovich.
Gorlubev and I smoked while we watched Ol show Markovich that the kit met our fake orders and that one of the vans was actually empty. Markovich looked happy. Things made sense. No one had looked closely into the BMW and spotted Marianna’s dark figure. Ol led Markovich quickly back to me and launched into a rant designed to manipulate Markovich.
“Boz, you see what I mean? This has got to improve. It’s not about us, it’s about these guys. They shouldn’t have to go through this while there’s a fucking war on. We need advanced clearances. Special Department’s got to cut through this bullshit or the backlog is going to just become massive. Sergeant Markovich is switched on and understands. Not everyone is like him. Please, can you get on the phone right now and just tell someone we need the right tools or setup or… whatever. We’re so far behind we’ll never really catch up, and lives are on the line here.”
What an utter twat. Exactly the right kind of twat.
I adopted a sympathetic, slightly sheepish look. “Yep, yep. I get that. I totally agree. Gimme a sec.” I pulled out my phone and wandered off, pretending to make a call as Ol re-engaged Markovich.
“One more thing,” said Ol. “Any chance you can advise any other roadblocks we’re coming?”
“I can try, Sir, but the stuff further east isn’t… on the same net. You know?”
“Not exactly.”
“It’s paramilitaries from here on in. Donetsk is a free-for-all. We’re the last full army block. Everything past here is Azov or whatever. They don’t give a shit about what I tell them. There’s dodgy bastards on the roads from here too. Doesn’t bother us in an APC, but you lot…”
Ol got Markovich’s number and agreed a protocol in case we needed his backup on the phone, but the info made us determined to avoid more blocks. We left Markovich with two cartons of cigarettes. Then Ol ran back to him just before we were going to pull out.
“One order I must give you, Sergeant.”
“What’s that, Sir?” Ol had no real direct command authority.
“Keep the centrefolds for yourself, and don’t glue more than half the pages together before you pass these onto your men.”
And then, Markovich had some porn.
We said thanks to Gorlubev and gave him his payment, then pressed on. We agreed to avoid any more blocks, so we turned south off the N15 at Dachne before Kurakhove. On the quiet road we pulled over to while we recovered the ZALA, refuelled it, split it in two and stowed it.
We had about two hours to drive straight east through little villages and arrange a handover south of Donetsk. In no man’s land we were targets for anyone with a gun. We sent a datalink set of instructions to Home to initiate our final run.
Handover from Olenivka eastwards. Cannot enter Donetsk. 15 cargo. Can handover cargo vehicles. Local intel states paramilitary and uncontrolled bandits, request force protection for handover. Suggest engage all DPR contacts with one primary, one secondary, one decoy.
Home acknowledged immediately.
DPR will take cargo vehicles. 6-9 man force protection available. Expect Andriivka for handover. Force protection will meet west of Olenivka as police for final escort. No air options for exfil - there’s a war on.
Home was on the case, helping us behind the scenes. Niki, or whoever our analyst actually was, was switched on and had a sense of humour. All we had to do was just get east, meet the local ground team and get to Andriivka. Our DPR force protection team was probably going to be guys like us mixed in with locals. That gave us a good feeling - we could rely on some solid, hard bastards to pick us up at the end of this two hour run when we were all knackered.
“We’re lucky that we got this job just as things kicked off,” I said. “A week later and this would be ten times harder. No ZALA en route. Tons more security or curfews. I told you 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off was a good thing for keeping hold of your balls! More so now.” I meant it, although it was a bit smug to say so.
“We haven’t finished yet, Dani. And we’ve probably got some fighting to do before we go home.” Spiker pushed back. “But I’ve got an idea about that. If you behave yourselves I might tell you about it later.”
“We should prep for contact,” said Ol which meant I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Given what Markovich had told us, we all felt the same. We donned full fighting gear - armour, load out, helmets, rifles and side arms - then we pulled some extra gear from the cargo. We slung a SMAW in each vehicle, took smoke and frag grenades and agreed on rendezvous points in case of getting separated in a fight. In case of failure, we each carried a white phosphorous grenade to burn a vehicle and everything in it. We couldn’t let the snoops or datalinks fall into enemy hands and the less trace of what we ‘d been doing or carrying the better.
“Have you two still got the decoy masks?” Ol asked. We nodded. “Burn them now. That would be funny if you got found out for the extraction all because you had them on you.”
We popped an alert pill and I re-froze my hand, although it was much improved anyway. The stimulants are a combination of Modafinil and Dexamphetamine, although it’s lower on the Dex than the Mod. This means you don’t get the twitches but you get just enough of a Dex edge. You look normal. No gurning, blinking or excessive dry mouth that can make you look like a junkie, and it lasts longer and has fewer attitudinal issues than just snorting coke. The cargo was unresponsive to our calls to check on them and we decided to leave them undisturbed. We gave Marianna another small dose to make sure she wouldn’t come round at some inopportune moment and distract me.
Back on the road, we had to eat and drink as much as we could in case something went wrong and we found ourselves in the field in survival mode.
South from Dachne to the first village on our eastern run, Uspenivka, we only passed three vehicles, all coming the other way. I was up front, 90 seconds ahead, Stan at the rear. In a contact, Ol and Spiker would try to escape while Stan and I engaged.
We turned left onto the start of our straight eastern run that took us through a string of villages towards Olenivka. It was 03:45. I weighed up our chances in a contact. Marianna and I had the most protection and the least explosives in the BMW, so I was as happy as I could be.
I felt very twitchy. It was combination of tiredness, the stimulants, the stress and the inability to do any physical exertion. My mind was wandering between the whole of the evening’s events - action, blagging and the cargo - and that last home straight. I had to keep cutting off my brain from replaying scenarios around the cemetery and at the ambulance, wondering whether things would have been better now if we’d done something different back there? At other times, I felt buoyed and cocky; we’d literally caused and escaped from mayhem, manipulated four cops to become our friends and openly twisted an experienced Sergeant into doing what he was told when he should’ve paid more attention.
One major loose end was the cargo burner phone in the first van. It was still on, still trapped but we hadn’t gotten to the bottom of it. I reminded the others it was a high priority item that we couldn’t forget about. At minimum, we’d tell the DPR agent, find it and destroy it, then the agents could decide what to do with Gusev and Balakin.
At 04:00, we were between Hanivka and Romanivka, two hamlets set back from the road.
“Sierra, I’ve got distant lights behind me.”
“Delta, Sierra, lights on, drop back so you can give us warning. I’m falling back to get in front of you. Oscar and Papa, accelerate to clear. All, confirm we have a snoop in monitoring and tail surveillance.”
“Papa, affirm, monitoring.”
“Sierra, affirm, tail surveillance.”
Mine was monitoring.
I aggressively swung the car around to close on them with my lights still off. I swung it around again as soon as I’d passed Spiker and put my lights on. It was just me and Stan, driving faster than the limit of the shitty back road. The tailing vehicle lights were closing, which was a bad sign.
“Sierra, they’re 100m, closing, overtaking within 15 seconds.”
Two cars were visible as they closed on us. The first pulled out to pass, but clearly slowed from their original closure speed.
“Sierra, first coming alongside. I’m showing tools.”
The car was overtaking at inspection speed. No doubt about it. Stan did whatever he felt was an appropriate show of presence or force, depending upon who he saw in the first car. Beeping. They started beeping the horn alongside Stan.
“Looks civvy. Three inside, he’s giving me shit out the window. Rear passenger is lying down.” I saw Stan’s internal light click on. “I showed him my pistol and the uniform.”
I pulled my mask up and clicked the cabin light on. The car accelerated past Stan. I slid my window down. The near freezing air billowed in and engine noises filled the cabin.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw a red bonnet in Stan’s lights. A foot wearing a light sneaker shoe and a bare shin was resting on the dash of the passenger side. At second glance I saw a pale, young, skinny face, shock of bleached blonde hair, open-mouth, a tongue curled down and out. Some dickhead trying to psych me out. In the drivers seat, the sample of humanity was similarly low. A checked bandana mask around the neck, dark hair, nasty eyes, dark t-shirt. I reached for my badge as they got alongside and shouted “SBU! Fuck off to bed!” and then locked gaze with the driver and shook my head. The driver’s expression remained unchanged. The passenger’s mouth closed up then he burst into laughter as though he’d been caught in some misdemeanour act of stealing another kid’s toy at school. The car dropped a gear and accelerated away, revealing itself as a reasonably quick VW Golf. As it moved back into our lane, the passenger leaned his upper body out of the window, looked back and pulled the same open-mouthed tongue face then disappeared back inside.
Local scum, but they could be interested now. It depends on a lot of things.
“Sierra, There’s still one behind. Braking.” Stan stabbed his brakes to decelerate hard. A black, possibly metallic Seat saloon sailed straight past both of us with two scrotes in the front. The passenger was turned looking at the driver and I didn’t really see them.
“Sierra, let’s go dark and close up on them.”
Intimidation was our tactic. We needed to scare these fuckers off from the other two vans. If they were dumb, they wouldn’t realise how close up we could get before revealing ourselves. Ol and Spiker escaped with lights off so these assholes wouldn’t necessarily know they were up ahead. I clicked off the lights and sped up.
“Delta to Oscar, Papa. Local scum in two cars passed us, closing on you. At least five, three in the front, two in the rear. Look like young scum. We’ve shown presence and force.”
“Oscar, we’ll pull off.” That was the easiest thing to lower risk.
By the edge of the next hamlet, we were within 50m of the rear Seat. I blipped the pedal to get 10 metres from its rear. I slapped on full beam and mashed the horn. The Seat swerved as though the driver jumped in shock while gripping the wheel. I saw the front passenger looking back, eyes wide enough.
I snapped out into the oncoming lane and burst forwards to get beside the Golf at the front. Stan closed up behind with his lights on full beam to keep dazzling them.
Who’s the biggest pussies on this road tonight, boys? It isn’t us. If you knew what we’d done and achieved, you’d be in bed instead of getting anywhere near us.
It was clear and straight ahead. As I passed the Golf I stared while scowling and beaming out thoughts of I am literally going to skin and gut you then burn you all. Those thoughts would come out through my eyes. I pointed my finger and flicked it forwards to say “now, fuck off,” then braked to slide back past the rear car. Stan braked with me to open the gap and I slipped back in, tight behind the rear car. They took the hint and accelerated away.
“I don’t like this, I’m going stealth pursuit again. You find Ol and stick together in stealth.” I said.
I killed my lights and accelerated away on night vision. I wanted the snoop to let me know what the little bastards were thinking. My bet was on them being nasty but unsure about my challenges. If they were on their own, they wouldn’t try anything.
Closing on the Seat my snoop showed five phones on the display. One was already in a call. I made the snoop break the call to force a new one I could listen in on.
“So, what do you think? Maybe we can spin some profit out the van?”
“What makes you think that?”
“An army guy and a dickhead in black in a slick 5 series? They must have something worthwhile. Both cocky as fuck. We could take them. The guy in the BMW had a black mask on. Serious asshole. Wants to get fucked! Ha ha ha ha!” A high-pitched, gunning laugh. I pictured gripping blonde hair above lifeless eyes.
“Get back here fast and I’ll think about it.”
This is not good. Backing. Intent. Enough for them to underestimate us and overestimate themselves. Their escalation is a threat. They are now a variable to factor and deal with.
I braked hard and let Stan close up. We pulled over and waited 5 minutes for Ol and Spiker to arrive from behind in the cargo vans.
“They made a call to someone, suggesting we’re a target. They think we’re Army and that I’m an asshole so their blood’s up. Trouble is, I don’t know where they’ve gone or how long they’ll take to come after us.” Escaping south at the next junction two hamlets up would add more time to our journey. Going north took us too close to controlled roads and blocks.
We went into maximum assault mode. I was with Spiker in the BMW. Ol and Stan were in the ZALA van. Marianna was out across the front seats of the first cargo van, both of which we left parked down a side road at the far eastern end of Katerynivka.
Seventeen minutes had passed since the scrote had made his call. At normal speed they could’ve been three hamlets up by Novomykhailivka or further. They could have been setting up a block or an ambush. If they’d been closer, they could have been in front or behind. We didn’t know. They were out of detection range of the snoops. We decided to clear forwards in the BMW and ZALA van, then go back and bring up the cargo vans, and repeat that process. The scum hadn’t seen the cargo vans, which could work to our advantage. It was slow and imperfect, but gave us a chance of clearing them out without putting the cargo at risk.
Past Kostyantynivka on dark road and about 400m from Novomykhailivka, Spiker was pointing. There were two cars up ahead on our side, pulled over strangely. That wasn’t where anyone would park up. I slammed the brakes on. Spiker scoped the cars through his rifle sight.
“Two vehicles, not the same as the others. Front one’s trunk is open. There’s a bag, couple of bags, maybe, bits of stuff on the ground. Second one is parked straight, back door left is open… Do you…? Have a look.”
I took his rifle and leaned over to get room on the sight.
“Is that some hair… a head out the side?”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Delta, two cars ahead, 100m. Possible crash or robbery. One body. Could be a trap.”
I looked at Spiker. I wasn’t sure.
“I don’t like this.” Spiker mused. “Options: drive past at full speed, if there’s something beyond then we’re into it, if it’s a roadside trap or bomb, we’ve only got the width of the road; two of us advance on foot to inspect and possibly assault with the other two backup at range; or turn around and do something else.”
Ol and Spiker decided to advance on foot and clear the vehicles, one along each side. The road was tree-lined with open fields either side. With night vision, it was easy to know if the approaches were clear and to spot criminal scum. Stan shifted into the back and readied the SMAW-D.
“Papa, still no movement. Nothing out right or beyond. Closing from the right back quarter.”
“Oscar, clear left, same. Closing from the left back quarter.”
I rolled the car forwards 20 metres. “Delta, we’re 80 metres. Will roll on your next clear call.”
“Papa, 20 metres out. No movement, no noise. Advancing.”
“Oscar, same, advancing.”
“Delta, advancing 20 metres.”
“Oscar, that’s definitely one body out of the rear of the back vehicle. Front door is open too, there’s someone in there, no movement. Front vehicle is at an angle, I can only see back left quarter. Doors are closed. Possible head in the driver’s side.”
“Papa, at the back vehicle, four dead inside. Moving to front.”
“Papa, they’re all gone. Headshots and close up fire. Pick us up.”
“Let’s assume that was their other job tonight. Thoughts?” I said.
“Fuck this, turn around, head south and avoid. We didn’t come this far to get shot by twats.” Ol was certain. That was the sensible thing to do.
“Poor bastards,” said Stan. “They were a family or something. Two families. Cars full of stuff. Escaping or… going somewhere.”
At the ZALA van, Stan and Ol jumped out and we set off back to the cargo. Barely a minute and a half passed.
“Shit! Front, front!” Spiker shouted at lights far up ahead. Multiple vehicles from Kostyantynivka. The straight, flat road gave us plenty of warning.
“What if… that’s them?!” I stated the obvious.
“Dismount! We don’t want them to shoot this thing.” Spiker recovered some position in the obvious statement competition.
“Delta, Contact front, dismount for assault. Spread out.”
I dumped down the gears to get engine braking as much as possible, mashed the electronic park brake to keep the car dark and pulled as far off the road as I dared. Spiker was straight out. I looked back over my shoulder. The SMAW-D was in the back footwell. The ZALA van was about 20 metres behind.
I’ll lug the junk then…
I was out, rifle in hand, and grabbed the SMAW-D. The lights were still more than 600m distant.
“Hurry up.” Ol said in my ear. “I’m in cover, 50 metres behind the van, right side wide. They might go past.”
“Sierra, I’m running forwards, left side… 40 metres ahead of the beamer now.”
“Papa, I’m abeam the car, 20 metres from the road, left side. Visual Stan.”
“Delta, staying right side, moving forwards, I’ll try for 30 metres in front of the beamer.”
By the time I was in position up against a tree, there were at least three cars approaching, less than 400m away, driving quick.
Clever fuckers on a rear ambush. Not clever enough to drive dark though.
There was no way they’d miss the BMW never mind the van, but they were likely to overrun. That would put Ol and Spiker closest to them, in primary assault positions. Stan would be furthest away, but he could still fire down the road safely from his position without catching us.
“Ol, where’s your SMAW?”
“Stan’s got it.”
“Not ideal if they overrun. I’ve got one. Call your SMAW shots before you take them. Caution close blast.”
The engine roars carried closer. It was almost freezing now. There was hard frost and a touch of snow on patches of the open ground. Gripping my rifle, my left hand was illusorily warmed by the burn’s pain. My breath raced through my mask, disappearing just after contact with the large tree I was against. All the trees were painted white from the base for about a metre, to show up in headlights. Lights blazed over the road, their edge lines rising as the traffic closed. The BMW’s front, then the van’s were illuminated but the scum were slow. Four cars, the red Golf and Black Seat plus an older silver Audi and some kind of crappy dark SUV raced by in close succession. They passed in just a few seconds, meaning they must have been doing more than 70 km/h. They overshot by maybe 200 metres before brake lights fired.
“Jesus, they’re sharp.” sniggered Ol. “Reposition. Let’s agree Rules.”
“If they get out with weapons and walk this way, that’s fair game, but how many do we want out in the open?” said Spiker.
“They’re all playing the game now.” I said. “I’m up for opening with one SMAW as soon as we identify weapons. I’ll try for the last vehicle to light the whole scene.”
We needed to work quickly. We didn’t have to kill them all, just enough to stop return fire and escape without taking any hits. A SMAW-D into the rear vehicle would do three major things: destroy the rear vehicle and everyone in it; damage at least one nearby vehicle via the explosion and shockwave; illuminate all of the cars and people in front via the car’s fuel fire, making them much easier to see in light and silhouette to kill quickly.
I sprinted back past the BMW and the van, about 20 metres from Ol. The cars were slowly turning in an uncoordinated way. All of us were likely to be within 100 metres of the cars as they headed back down to us at low speed in both lanes. The car in second position started braking, the front followed suit, then the last two slowed, then they’d all bunched up. Idiots.
“Leader is still scouting forwards.” Ol was calling the play. “Stan, move up with the SMAW to make a shot to the rear pack. Spiker, offset so you can fire without hitting us. Dani, leave your SMAW there, get nearer the van. You may have to go close. I’ll drop back to your SMAW.”
The lights of the front car approached. Low, I dropped the SMAW-D and then crouch ran back, tree to tree, looking down and left to see enough of the road behind to watch the lights close. I dived down on to the ground behind a tree, trying to stifle my steaming breath.
The lead car was rolling along the other side of the road. It was about 15 metres behind and I was about 10 metres from the van. Then it stopped.
“Come out! Come out of the cars! We want to talk to you!” a young voice slightly screamed rather than shouted. I crabbed round slowly on my belly to get a view around the edge of the tree in its shadow. My night vision was in the car. I would have to hunt naturally.
“Come out! Get out of the van!” Muttering. A door opened. Footsteps.
“Ol, pass status.” I whispered.
“Lead vehicle, one passenger out. Driver in, can’t see rear. Other vehicles stationary, range 80 metres.”
Footsteps moved forward. Someone spoke.
“Go on!”
Blondie ran past, illuminated in the headlights, to the van. He banged against it to a stop and jerked the handle.
“It’s empty! It’s locked!” Blondie called back. The car moved forwards to just in line with me then stopped. The driver jumped out. It was the Golf. Nasty and Blondie. There might have been a third in the back. If I killed Nasty and Blondie, bullets would go into the Golf.
“Oscar, two out of the Golf. They’re at the van. Both have pistols.”
“Sierra, visual. No clean shot.”
“Papa, visual. Van is background, shot blocked.”
“The van’s empty and locked.” Nasty was speaking into a phone. “BMW? Don’t know. Err…”
I eased up onto my hands, in a low press up. I lifted my rifle off the ground, then placed it quietly ahead, starting a low, slow, prowling crawl. I scanned forwards, looking for anything in the thin, patchy grass like twigs or crisp leaves that would betray my approach to Nasty and Blondie. The back of the van was lit, in view past the next tree. I had to stay low to get to the right side of the van. The tree line and my angle blocked my view past the van to the BMW. I couldn’t speak, only listen. The back of the van was fully illuminated. The footsteps began to move out of sync. I froze, listening for direction of travel. Both were armed, so our threshold for death was met.
“Come out of the car!” They were moving towards it, slowly. “No one’s answering.” They were talking to themselves or into a phone. “Come out, now!” There was tension in the voice. The very slight realisation that they didn’t really understand the possibilities of the tactical position.
“Sierra, targets both moving to the BMW, shot still blocked. One is leading, he’ll be clear in a couple of metres, but the second is still against the van.”
“Delta, low stealth van.” I whispered, almost inaudible. The throat mic would pick that up. I was nearly at the back corner of the van, just wide enough out from it. The road edge was slightly higher, casting a thin cover of shadow over me. A few more moves put me in the tight shadow of the van.
“Sierra, front target is back quarter BMW. Headshot, but will lose it against the car.”
I was beside the van, in the edge of its angular shadow.
“It’s empty! Open!” There was a sort of relief in the voice. “The beamer’s open…” He was distracted.
“Sierra, target is opening the BMW. Second target is covering by the van, front quarter, gun up.”
I slowly, slowly began my rise. I looked back over my shoulder. The treeline completely blocked my view up the road to any of the other vehicles. They couldn’t see me. I slowly crept to a firing position. I rose out of my semi squat, checking the ground below me for anything that made noise. The ground around the trees was mercifully clear, just cold soil. Gripping the rifle barrel with my left hand, holding it in the firing position against my right shoulder, I reached down with my right hand for the small knife sheathed sideways on my belly, and withdrew it. There was some noise from the BMW. Rifling.
“Fuck! Some… night sights?! Where’s the trunk release?” Nasty was speaking out from the car, back to Blondie, no doubt on the phone as well.
Try working out how to switch the sights on and adjust them. It’ll be over before you ever see anything but black.
“Just try it at the trunk.” Blondie was very close, around two corners of the van. The kill depended on timing and proximity. I rose to a low hunch. Two slow steps got me to the passenger window. Nasty was at the back of the BMW. Blondie was in front of the van, watching him. He thought he was covering but he was prey. I sank below the window line in anticipation of him looking behind, and inched forwards to the corner, still in full shadow. Nasty had the trunk open and leaned in where there was the support pack, nice food, sundries. I pictured blonde hair and dead eyes.
“Huh? It’s fucking…” Nasty threw out toilet paper to the ground behind. “…toilet roll!”
I heard Blondie step.
I rose. He was just forwards of where I last saw him. In one step I swept around the van’s front corner. Blondie’s back was crossing right in front of me, a metre from where my left foot landed as my eyes moved up to the exposed neck. My left hand pulled the rifle barrel away and took its weight as my right fist punched the knife into the base of Blondie's skull. Bone deflected the knife up into soft enough stuff with a schluck. I instantly released the knife to keep my right hand going forwards under the chin to take his weight and pull him close against me. His slump put the knife handle into my collar bone, pressed him onto my rifle and sandwiched it to my chest. My left hand grabbed his waistband while I looked behind and pushed back. There was a clatter as Blondie’s gun hit the ground. I lunged back, still in shadow and covered behind the corner of the van where I’d started. I felt the darkness around me and my prey. Nasty stood up from the trunk to look but Blondie’s gun was in shadow and Nasty’s view back was into the lights. I eased down Blondie’s body while holding my breath. With my right hand on the knife, thumb against the lower skull, I eased out the blade.
“Damian! Damian! It’s… It’s just… Damian!” I watched Nasty move to the left edge of the trunk, illuminated by his own lights. Too easy. “Nothing here… Dami…” He stepped back a couple of paces, turning towards the van.
Pffft-tunk. In front of a firing Vintorez rifle, I heard the gas hiss, the slide and the spring. There was no crack. Nasty’s head turned a different shape before his limp body hit the ground.
“SMAW out.”
A wide noise like a massive shotgun, an instant crackboom then warm-toned light all happened behind me. The sounds lingered in spreading echo in the still, cold air. I was too heavily dressed and too far away to feel the actual radiated heat of the fuel going up, despite the coldness of the night. I exhaled deep into the air, creating a plume of fractionally lived smoke.
“Engaging!” Spiker stated the obvious, well after the fact.
Thanks. I did not know that.
My hands snapped straight to my rifle. I ran back past the van towards Ol, coming to the right side of the trees to peer up the road at the cars. The sight was nearly what I imagined: one of the back cars - on the left side of the pack - was a raging bent, hard-edged fire. The roof was mostly missing. The front vehicle was half lit at the back, half silhouetted at the front, maybe 15 metres in front of the fire, doors flapping, maybe opening. The back car - probably blocked from Ol’s shot - was lit by the fire with perhaps a face or two in view through its windshield.
“Delta, two down at the van, assaulting.” I moved to the left side of the trees along the road, heading towards the further cars.
End this now and leave.
“Assaulting.” I heard Ol in my ear and near my feet as I went by.
“Sierra, I’m going for the van.”
“Spiker, assaulting up the right.”
In the fire light three people exited the front car - the one on the left fell to one knee, almost like Rodin’s The Thinker. Behind, from the rear passenger, someone hauled themselves out into my sight. Pfft-tunk. The shape dropped. Pftt-tunk. I made The Thinker stop thinking.
Pfft-tunk dung! Pfft-tunk dung! Two shots from my right went into a car ahead.
I looked over my shoulder. The lead car was right in line with me and where Spiker might be.
I paused for a second.
We are not under threat. We are the threat.
I checked for my knife. Stowed, automatically without a memory of it being done.
Stan is in the van… SMAW-D launcher. Get it. Think again… think…
I looked back to the fires.
That’s what you get for murdering families and trying to rob us.
The last vehicle’s windscreen still had shapes. I put out four rounds to clear them.
“Delta, recovering the SMAW, withdraw, withdraw.” I jogged along the treeline, scanning for where the SMAW’s empty tube was, further back than I thought. I scooped it to clean up. Stan and Ol were there in the firelight.
“Anyone know if there were three in this Golf?” I asked.
“Dunno.”
“Me neither.”
I clicked my rifle selector to auto, pulled it tight into my shoulder and sprayed an auto burst from the back door across to the front.
The van sped past as I got in the BMW passenger seat. I started fumbling to get the key out. Spiker just pressed the start button.
“You’re in, with the key in your pocket, that’s all it needs. Ha! Ha! Ha! You’re so fucking slow! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
”Delta, good news is they’re dead. Bad news is the we’ve got to go around to the south now.”
We got back to the cargo vans and didn’t even bother to shift Marianna. We hightailed it south on night sights to get some distance from the crime scene. With an extra 20 minutes of detour, we had an hour to run until we would pick up our escort. Despite the massive, fast violence we had time, confusion and circumstances on our side. We were miles away from the nearest cops. Everyone was asleep. Explosions would wake people up but fire would keep them back. And in a war, people suspect bombs are dropping before they think operators are hunting.
We needed to rendezvous with our escort and authenticate it, while avoiding any more shit. I made life easy for myself and used the satellite phone link to get our analyst on the line.
“Hello?”
“Agent Boryslav Kulyk, 7175-P67, TRAPPER 30/05/1976.”
“Go.”
“ETA to RV locale is 60 minutes. Pass specific location on datalink. My authentication BLARTFAST. Send mirror on datalink. Confirm.”
“60 minutes to RV. Location datalink. BLARTFAST, mirror on datalink.”
“Solid. What intel have you got for us?”
“Northern Agent is unable to vacate city. Limited ability to spoof, consider unavailable. Second agent is waiting at Obil’ne, clear of handover. Third will meet you at handover. No significant en route activity to impede progress. From now on, I’ll priority ping you anything. Keep your datalink on you.”
“Thanks. Out.”
We got co-ordinates for the RV with the escort on the western edge of Olenivke and their codeword AZILSLIBS. While we waited, we ripped all the farm decals off the vans and burned them. The lights of a car approached. A police car rolled up. A voice called out, “I’m looking for Mr. BLARTFAST. Do you know him?”
“No, I’m Azil Slibs. Keep looking.”
The police officer got out. “Right boys, not far. Just follow me. It’s 20 minutes. Another plain blue car will follow us in with two more lads in it. There’s 3 with me. Breakfast awaits.”
Everything we’ve done tonight is criminal. These aren’t acts of war. We escalated events to violence and death. We did that for our country, under orders to the best of our ability in the timeframes and with the resources available. We dealt with all variables, all people. All of us risk death or life imprisonment. The extraction took high profile personnel and our method made the news. Given enough time, Gorlubev, Markovich or an element in the SBU is going to add something up and we’ll be burned if they get our faces out.
I feel exposed. In Dnipro, we were fully disguised but police and soldiers know us now. That trail will not go cold.
Gorlubev’s primary interest is the Vasyl’kivka incident and any relationship to the Dnipro incident. He’ll smell a rat somewhere soon. That will lead to questions about us. We’re down for weapons smuggling, bribery, armed assault and murder.
Gorlubev might think twice. His career could be damaged by failure to check us out fully. If he’s not actively involved in the investigation, he might know to lose interest. We could hold off Gorlubev for a short while via Chornovil, maybe.
Kulyk’s probably not going to be useable for more than a day or two. He was good while he lasted.
It’s the cops who are the biggest threat because of how much time we spent with them. I wonder what Home’s feedback will be?
“You should have masked up more.”
“You should have been constantly disguised.”
“You should have killed the cops and burned out their cars.”
“You should have avoided the roadblocks.”
“You should have…”
How does this play off against my “High Performance” business case? Are we role-modelling high performance?
Fuck them. I’ll write the best and hardest sounding report, get the lads to input to it, and submit it like a fucking hero. If they’ve got a problem with what we’ve done, we can take it head on. Probably still got that fucking kill job to do. We could just go home from here, straight east. Now we have to get back. Total fucking ball ache.
The handover location was more than ideal. Just before sunrise we pulled into a farm on the northwest corner of Andriivka. I told the agent and the operators about the phone and we waited until they pulled the cargo out and the phone was secured. The cargo was in reasonable shape from what we could tell, although they needed to come round fully to be sure but that was someone else’s problem. The infant was the only one I was bothered about. We’d taken a guess at dosing it and it was just helpless. Its vitals seemed OK although we forgot about its nappy. If we’d been stopped again, that would’ve blown the whole game.
Marianna’s piss bag leaked in the van on the last run and fucking ruined it. Good job we nicked some extra clothes for her. Spiker did the right thing and made sure Marianna would wake up fully dressed with no reason to doubt what had happened while we shipped her to Donetsk. He’s soft at heart. We’re never going to see her again and it would have been a funny, twisted ending if we just left it. That was too cruel for Spiker. The DPR were taking the cargo vans and the weapons so we left them to ponder cleaning off the pensioner piss from the van’s cab.
We were all variously coming down from this phase of the job but the alert pills kept us up. We got comfy in a big living room and the kitchen.
“No matter what any one of you might think about the job and how we did it,” I offered, “you are all high performing, solid motherfuckers. There isn’t a person on the planet I would have rather done this job with other than you three.”
“Four of us did pretty well. And it wasn’t just a smash and grab.” Stan replied.
“Boryslav Kulyk has a lot of explaining to do.” Spiker said. “If he looks anything like you in real life, his career’s down the toilet.”
“He does look like me, that’s why I used him. Truth be told, I wish I’d disguised myself more now, to look like the real Boryslav or just anyone else. That’s my fault. I should have pressed for more disguise.”
“Bullshit. It wouldn’t have made any difference with the cops.” Ol said. “Do we get bonus points for zero bullet holes in the transport?“
“What we do after this will be interesting.” I said. “Any special requests?”
“Go see my grandma,” Spiker joked.
Wow! That was a gripping read, thank you!