Daniel 04 - Motion Capture
“What’s happening?!” The driver shouted. I pressed my finger to my lips and motioned for him to get down.
It was 19:09. Before I got on the main road to the airport, I pulled over to change. I put on the dark-skinned, full head mask, a Covid mask and a B-Boy baseball cap.
We had three decoy elements. I was one, Stan was one, together he and I were another. Stan was heading to the shoppers’ car park at the Epitsentr mall in the centre of town. He'd park in a camera dead spot, disguise himself like me, walk through the car park and dump some of the cargo phones on random cars; down the gap in the hood, in wheel arches, inside fenders and bumpers. Then he'd leave and come to the airport to a dead road for me.
“Oscar and Papa rolling.” The cargo had begun its run. They had a minimum of 1:15 of driving north out of the city. If everything was going well, they’d break south before Pavlohrad, pass Mais’ke and meet us at Pravda if we hadn’t already caught up. If something was going bad, they could keep going to the hide in Pavlohrad for a re-think. If it was really bad, the cargo would be sacrificed. The time difference between looping north then south compared to just heading east out of Dnipro was only 20 minutes if the routes were clear. If the cargo was visually tracked out of Dnipro going north then east on the E50, turning south on crappy roads past Mais’ke would confuse followers about where they went. Doubling back south was the counterintuitive option, in order to really get east. All that for 20 minutes was worth it.
Stan and I would follow along to catch up. We could have taken the eastern route direct to Pravda but splitting up was a waste of force if the cargo ran into trouble, and managing the cargo was a team job.
I headed south from the cemetery to the airport. I parked in the tight far corner of the Europcar car park on the edge of camera cover. Other vehicles were there that mixed and blocked the view.
I stowed the rifle straight down my back, pulled my black over trousers and coat over the rifle to hide it, then set a burn charge next to a petrol can on the front seat. I checked my mask a final time then slipped out. I put one more burn charge in the back and left the doors ajar. I crossed the road north into a field, turned left and ran west, paralleling the road. I had to get 2km to the pick-up, staying out of sight.
The pickup was in a dead-end lane with a few small, quiet houses. I concealed myself in the grass and waited for Stan to arrive. As I waited, I cleaned all the mud and shit off my boots.
“Delta, Oscar Papa. Pass status… Delta, Oscar Papa. Pass status.”
Nothing came back. They could have been out of range or dead.
“Sierra. Inbound Zulu 2, ETA less than 5 minutes.” Stan was near. When he arrived, I checked in the back. Marianna still had a pulse and was breathing.
“How are you doing, buddy?” I asked Stan as we pulled away.
“Good. On plan. She's OK?” He was calm, measured, soft spoken. That was indicative of operational focus and concentration. Minimum words. “The intel grabs are in that box.” He pointed to the smaller faraday box on the floor. We’d stash it and come back for it another time. We were headed north to the bridge to pick up the ZALA van and the BMW.
“We need to think about the bridge. We either continue, over go the long way round, or we abort.” I said. Stan was quiet, thinking.
“Err… well… look on the drone?” he said.
I laughed. I’d forgotten the ZALA was still up. “Thank fuck you’re here.” I said. The bridge was still open. The cemetery was a shit show. I could see the fires and flashing lights. At least four emergency vehicles. That was good.
Nearing the bridge, north on Yasnopolyans'ka St, we pulled over and I dumped the small faraday box just off the road’s edge in the long grass. My adrenaline was up, which was probably why I’d forgotten about the drone. I did some Wim Hof breathing as we got to the bridge to calm down. Stan joined in.
“If we get trapped on here, I dump the cargo phones and you cover. We either overwhelm them to escape or we jump off the bridge. Any preferences?” I said.
“Getting killed. Jumping the bridge. Getting lucky. They’re my preferences. In reverse order.”
After the bridge we pulled into Shlyakhova Street, with the drone at low altitude overhead. We decided to leave it in the air and fly it as much as we could. I set a burn charge in the decoy van with a petrol can beside while Stan grabbed Marianna and loaded her into the BMW. I drove the decoy close to the river’s edge, hopped out and threw the remaining phones and devices from the big faraday box into the river until they were all gone. Stan picked me up with the faraday box in the ZALA van and we left the decoy at the water’s edge.
“Ol and Spiker are clear, on their way. They put the code on the datalink,” Stan said.
It was another way to communicate without talking to each other. They’d written a message in our datalink pad. One code word, “WELLINGTON”. Stan replied “AUCKLAND” that meant we were OK. We set a route for the ZALA at a low altitude until it was far enough north to be well outside any sensible range of the military units, then we set it to go east. We’d keep an eye on it. We stashed the Vintorez rifles under the van seats and took off our black overclothes and the masks. Underneath, I looked like Boryslav Kulyk, SBU agent. Stan looked like a Lieutenant in the Ukrainian Army. We sorted out our outfits and load-outs so everything matched up properly and set up the vehicles the way we wanted them for the long drive ahead. I got in the BMW and we set off north in convoy.
On the road out of Dnipro heading for Pravda I reviewed how things had gone and felt pretty good about myself and about us. So far, so high performance. We’d done everything we thought we needed to and I couldn’t think of a major problem. Marianna was as clean as we could work out and she was now part of the extraction, so it was a good job we’d tested her. If the ZALA got shot down, we could just keep going and put it down to bad luck. If not, we’d land it to refuel and keep it in the air.
There was no specific intel about roadblocks so far, but we had to keep an eye on it. Live traffic gave clues but solid intel from Home was better.
Now that we had Marianna, Marko would be alerted the moment he went to visit and find she wasn’t at home. I hadn’t worked out how we could explain to her what had happened to her. She was hooded behind me in the BMW and couldn’t hear anything, so she wouldn’t know I was driving if she managed to come to. I mulled over what we’d tried to make her believe.
She thinks she’s been abducted by corrupt SBU who said they were in control of the trafficking. Marko is a trafficking total cunt. He’s fucked someone over in the business so he owes money and fingers. He could be dead soon. They said on the phone they were holding Marko and can hurt him. They threatened Marianna’s whole family, are going to take money off her and have me as a Russian agent, and I was beat up.
It was best to keep her drugged until the handover. No need to try to explain anything that way. With her out of it, we couldn’t manage Marko with phone calls from Marianna. If Marko’s called her, he won’t get through since we turned off her phone and boxed it.
40 minutes out of Dnipro we pulled over. I adjusted the drone’s routing and flew it higher on the route east then south to get it caught up with, then ahead of the cargo. Stan broke out stuff from the nice bag and set up the van’s engine compartment oven. We had an ammo box in it that he filled with water and army ration packs, and a steel flask full of water for drinks. People forget they’re driving around with fully serviceable ovens. He pulled our better, home cooked goodies out of the nice bag that we ate while driving. Cold shrimp ravioli, lobster tails, mixed salad and a camembert and prosciutto baguette were never appearing on any army menu. There was lukewarm coffee in another flask that was ten times better than Nescafé.
We wouldn’t send any messages to Ol or Spiker unless something was changing significantly or going bad. That kept our signals to a minimum. Intel alerts from Home would ping on the datalink if they were priority. We just needed to keep going to meet up at Pravda and then we’d deal with the cargo. Stan and I stayed in contact with radio first and foremost. We had mobiles but we kept them off. We each had a snoop set up that could do tons of things with radio and mobile signals if we needed.
Back on the road I started to practise my new identity. If we got stopped, we had to bullshit our way through.
“I’m Boryslav Kulyk.”
“Unit Commander, Special Department, SBU.”
“Boryslav Kulyk. SBU. Who are you?”
I can raise my eyebrows in a “Really? Just try and convince me, starting now…” kind of look.
“Boryslav Kulyk. SBU. And I don’t believe a fucking word you say, because I know you’re a fucking liar. Huh? What do I do? I’m Unit Commander, Special Department.”
No one knows that the fuck that means. Which is the best bit about it. “Special Department” means “We’re corrupt as fuck and we do what we like.” I can probably hold my hand out for something and get something back.
Boryslav Kulyk was actually a real SBU Officer in the Special Department. I could run reasonably far with that cunt’s identity. Probably even make a few calls to services with his name and details. There's 30,000 SBU heads. That's six times more security service personnel in Ukraine than in the UK. You had to ask why? Good thing is that there’d be room to blag with that many people dressed in black who don’t all know each other.
In the passenger footwell I had my black SBU armour and helmet. A TAR-21 rifle was on the seat. I practised the motions of firing through the side windows with it to get a feel for the movements, just in case. If I sprayed it on full auto next to another vehicle, they’d be fucked.
We all made it to our meeting point near Pravda.
The two cargo vans were tight behind the other. The BMW was behind and we were outside the ZALA van at the back of the line. We’d pulled well off the main road on a side road in the shade of a clump of trees.
“How you all doing?” I asked. We’d done more and worse before now, but every job was a new job and you could die on every one of them. Not being dead is always a massive achievement.
“Pretty good.” Started Ol. “Well done to us all so far. It was pretty good that we managed to do so much between just the four of us.”
“Yeah, I’m alright.” said Spiker. “I think we need to actually slow down a bit, eat, drink, consult. We have to check the cargo properly as well. Ol did a great job at the plot. Seriously, like a spell or something. The Order of Service was genius. He had them all sorted… Anyway…” Spiker was babbling a bit. It was an adrenaline come down combined with stress and tiredness.
“You’ve all done amazing work. Spiker, you were right to strip the job down. Even this ‘simple’ was still busy. Thanks for that. Ol, if the Church needs a Father who really can guarantee the safety of his flock, I might know the guy. Stan, clinically good judgement as always. Well done covering the whole site, and you’re scary as fuck.”
They nodded and smiled in reply to the praise. We needed to service the cargo. We had to let them out for a toilet break, feed and water them then drug them without them knowing. If we hit a roadblock and anyone made noise, we were into either maximum bullshit mode or a firefight. Neither was a great option.
We kept our balaclavas on and Ol addressed the cargo in his Father Rudenko voice before we let them all out.
“Good evening everyone, it’s Father Rudenko again. I’m here with my friends from the service. First, I want to say ‘thank you’ to you all for being wonderful, special people. My friends and I could not have had better help from you all. You were fabulous from the moment we met you. Thank you. We know that your space is small and you’re uncomfortable…”
“We need to come out!” The Gusev woman was whingeing. “We need space and the children… toilets and food!” She sounded like lower strata bureaucracy in an essential division - someone used to demanding stuff because they can’t really be sacked. Or punched hard in the mouth, or something else that happens so close that all you see are two gaping eyeballs. If this went wrong, that was all stuff she’d get to know.
“Yes, I totally agree,” said Ol. “So, I just wanted to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ first, before you started moving. It is cold outside. We’re going to let you out now. Please, listen. You must follow these instructions:
Get out and form family groups.
Move around, jump and stretch and massage your arms and legs.
Breathe deeply.
Stay next to the vehicle.
Toilets will come after this.
“Adults, do you all understand what I have just said and are you all going to follow my polite request?”
They all murmured “yes”. They knew we were helping them. They knew we were professionals. Professional at making crack noises in the darkness and possibly at smashing people in the back of the head. I was good at pretending to care as well; they couldn’t tell if it was true.
We opened up the hides and the kids practically fell out looking variously fucked off, desperate, confused, and disturbed. I could hear older joints cracking. I lifted down a boy 7 years old, giving him a hug and a pat on his back. He seemed to appreciate it.
Spiker pulled the support pack from the BMW. There was one in each cargo van but we used the Beamer’s first so nothing in the vans got disturbed. It was a black military rucksack with toilet paper first, then snacking food of various kinds, ration meals, a tray of water and still juice, then other gear like first aid, cooking and practical stuff. There were some steel flasks of milk in there too. Spiker broke out the toilet roll while I gave instructions to Mr Gusev from the first van and Mr Kamenev from the second van.
“You are now leading your group. Take half the toilet paper and give it to the adults. Then, help the children use the toilet just here, beside the van. Do not move away. When you’re done, we’ll move the vans so the ground is clear. Then put the kids back in the van and close the doors to, for heat. After, you adults will go to the toilet by the trees. Do this now before you get too cold. We are sorting food and drink.” They set about without speaking. The other adults heard and complied.
Spiker sorted food from the vehicle engines, swapping hot ration packs and flasks for cold ones. Stan went to check Marianna in the BMW. Ol watched over the cargo from a distance. I checked datalink for intel on our route and messages from Home.
While I was checking the datalink, my mind wandered off into thinking about what I’d do if things went bad.
If there was some kind of revolt, physically I could handle all of the people here. There would be run offs, but they wouldn’t be a threat. There’s no one around and it’s cold. We’d find them. If the cargo thought we were bad and jumped me, I’d be able to hammer the first few so hard that the others would stop from shock. Key is protecting my sidearm from being grabbed. If anyone comes at me now then I’d make space, turn my holster side away from them and manage things. If I was being set upon, I’d be smashing faces with the gun first, running back, identifying the biggest threat and firing one off into the air. I’d command them to stop, de-escalate and see what happened. Just don’t shoot any of the lads.
All of us were wearing sidearms. Stan, Ol and Spiker were in full Army uniform with basic insignia. Ol was a Captain, Stan and Spiker Lieutenants. That gave them plenty of authority and arguably you wouldn’t let scum do dodgy weapons runs at night on minimum staffing if you wanted to see all the weapons and not have a crash on the way.
Ol and Spiker got their night vision out to keep an eye on the adults among the trees. Anyone running would be hard contained and have the shit beaten out of them. I took a load of food to the kids in the second van. I bullshitted them it was adventure food and their interest perked up. I ripped open the packs and gave them some wooden spoons. The kids in there were the eldest and they didn’t take much work. The food was to their liking, but that’s exactly what rations are designed for: big kids with shitty palates.
We got everyone fed in the vans. Spiker prepped the drugged tea and milk. Stan told us on the radio he gave Marianna preventative management. He switched over her piss bag and stuck her on an IV hanging from the BMW’s roof light with a load of glucose and nutraceuticals in it, just in case. Her blood pressure was a bit low.
Ol and Spiker took tea cups laced with diazepam round the adults. When it was gone, we got them to settle into decent positions. We gave drugged milk to the kids, but the dose was half. The infant had a separate drink of milk with a tiny dose in it. We just had to hope on that one.
“Try to get comfy.” I told them. “This is gonna be a long stretch and you might wanna get some sleep. If we stop, stay absolutely silent.”
With the hides closed up and the cargo vans locked, we checked intel and routing info in the ZALA van. Dnipro police and security were on high alert because of the cemetery. The extraction was on the wires. There were no descriptions of us, but the Gusevs, Balakins and Drozdovs were all listed as missing. Nothing on Marianna or the Kamenevs. We just had to stay ahead of the curve and avoid police and SBU. Army wasn’t necessarily clued in to that police and security intel, but it could get sent to roadblocks. Our way east looked reasonably clear but the last run to Donetsk was showing signs of Army blocks. We’d have to work out a route when we got nearer. The ZALA was further east ahead of us now, giving us a way to spot trouble early.
We got back on the road. From Pravda the route was to Vasyl’kivka, Bondareve then Chaplyne, from where we could go north or south. The roads were fairly basic and speed wasn’t high. We agreed to think about recovering the ZALA around Chaplyne. That was our immediate plan.
Then it went straight to shit.
We came out of Pravda, round a bend past a petrol station and were headed south to Vasyl’kivka. We’d gone half a kilometer. Ol was up front, Spiker next, Stan then me.
“Oscar, caution. Traffic slow south from Pravda to Vasyl’kivka, traffic slowing ahead. Unknown reason.”
We just fucking looked at the route. This was clear.
“Oscar, stopped in traffic on the southern straight to Vasyl’kivka. Possible police or ambulance. Occasional blue lights ahead, can’t see.”
We slowed up one behind the other in standstill traffic. A light stream of opposite traffic suddenly dried up and the lane became clear.
“Delta, I’ll pull out and try and get ahead to see what’s going on.” I carefully pulled out with lights on full beam, wishing I had flashing blue lights on the car.
This could go very bad. It could be anything. Be confident, curious. Show intent to help at first, then ramp up my own priority. Avoid opening on too great a threat. I’m Boryslav Kulyk, SBU. What’s the issue?
The opposite lane was totally empty. That meant that something had blocked all the oncoming traffic. A roadblock? I decided to check it out alone and could tell the others to go back if necessary. To turn around was a huge detour on worse roads. Up ahead, I made out a car across both lanes. I pulled up a good 70 meters away.
A black saloon was pulled across the road. Behind was a large van-like vehicle - a police van or ambulance - silhouetted in lights behind, slightly skewed, blocking both lanes. Only the left half of its blue lights were flashing intermittently, as though the other half were damaged. No one was visible. I dipped the lights and rolled forward slowly. I reached back and pulled Marianna down across the back seat. I stopped the car 20m from the the black Audi.
“Delta, 20 meters from a block. Car and emergency vehicle across the road. Oscar, look for a reverse and re-route.”
“Oscar, it’s at least a 40 minute detour, maybe more.”
Shit.
“Delta, I’ll take a look. Hold position.”
I covered my face with my balaclava, grabbed my helmet and hauled up my armour, then stepped out, got strapped up and sorted while scanning around. I grabbed the TAR-21 rifle and connected the clip-in sling buckle so it hung inside my jacket.
“Delta, approaching block. Standby.” I headed slowly towards the side of the Audi’s engine block, passing stationary cars on my right. I glanced over at the drivers. One was looking straight at me. I pointed down to get his window open.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I dunno, there was some shouting. I think an accident?” I nodded and moved on. The emergency vehicle’s lights were blazing. That close to the Audi they spilled into my eyes, forcing me to shield them with my left hand. At the Audi, I ducked down and slid along towards the rear. There was no one in it. The driver and same side rear door were both open. The van’s lights blocked my view past it. I tucked behind the rear wheel, slide to the back corner and peered around.
Shit.
I cocked the rifle and checked it, then took the safety off.
“What’s happening?!” The driver I’d spoken to shouted. I pressed my finger to my lips and motioned for him to get down.
The van was an ambulance. It must have pranged the Audi from behind, but not too hard. Up ahead, there was a body in the road that looked like a paramedic. Some gear from the ambulance was strewn on the floor, just past the body. There was a burst of shouting. Anger. Fearful cries. Lights from the stationary oncoming traffic were about 20 metres up ahead, limiting my view past. I drew back and hopped over the Audi’s bonnet to press up against the ambulance’s front quarter. There were two bullet holes in the windshield but no driver. The passenger door was ajar.
Fuck. That could be the driver in the road, pulled from the vehicle?
I slid along the side of the ambulance to its rear left corner, just past the wheel and dropped to my knee to peer beneath and look forwards from cover. Someone was running straight towards the ambulance.
“What’s happening?!” that driver shouted again from behind. The running footsteps shimmied and slowed. I could see the feet just at the ambulance. I rose to a crouch and drew back, pulling my pistol. The runner bounded into the back of the ambulance’s open rear right door, bouncing the suspension with their energy and weight. Noises of rifling and clattering. Plastics ruffling and crisping, something being piled into a bag. Another runner approached.
“Delta, Oscar. Status?” I keyed my radio’s knuckle button once to indicate I heard but couldn’t speak.
“Get the gas!” Panic or excitement in a voice from one of the runners. Young.
“Yeah, yeah!” A deeper voice replied, almost giddy. “Drugs are up there. Just fucking get it all!”
More rifling noises, cupboards were pulled open. I looked back under the ambulance. Traffic in our direction on the right side was clear ahead. The oncoming traffic had stopped, at least a few cars were there.
Robbery. If they get their stuff and fuck off, we can get past. Be patient.
“Delta, advance to my poz, caution. It’s a robbery.” I whispered on the radio.
A distant shout came from up ahead.
“Come on! Have you got it?”
“I can’t get it off… it’s stuck on!” Movement, scrabbling, a metallic ringing clang and clatter of a bottle. Aggressive wrenching rocked the ambulance on its suspension. There was a bang clatter as something gave and someone banged against the other side of the ambulance.
“Ooofff! Got it! Ha ha!”
From up ahead, past the ambulance, “COME ON! GET IT AND GO! I’VE GOT HIM!”
Footsteps closed from behind me, from our direction. I glanced up. No one I recognised, another traveller, female but plain to the point of androgyny. I raised my hand to silence or keep her back. Too late.
“What’s happening, we need to moooove!” She barked angrily, looking at me as though someone squatting in a black mask would talk her through things. She was uncomprehending. Footsteps banged through the ambulance from inside to outside.
Ready. I tensed, weight shifed to my front right foot.
Into my upward gaze, the tip of a pistol advanced straight past the edge of the ambulance, with a screaming “FUCK YOU! GET DOWN BITCH!” Only the arm was exposed to me. The woman immediately broke into a fearful crying expression without noise.
“GET DOWN! GET DOWN!” Some sadistic kind of laugh followed. The woman was frozen. My eyes locked to the weapon’s barrel.
I sprang up and forwards, reaching for the pistol barrel with my left hand and grabbed it hard. I pushed forward against it to control and force the gun and the arm off the firing line and twist it into my line of motion. I kept the sweep of my left arm going as my body moved across the aggressor’s vision, driving the pistol to keep it turning, initiating a pull. The gun went off, firing almost forwards from me as my hand stung cold. The aggressor’s mass fell forwards into the space I passed through as I pulled them off-balance and dragged them forwards. I stamped hard on my right foot to push back and reverse my motion into the aggressor and drove my left elbow and bodyweight into them. There was a loud boom as I slammed them against the rear edge of the ambulance and another crack bang of the gun. My hand spiked with the heat of the barrel. A yell came from somewhere, then a snarl came from my mouth as I drove the body down with my weight through my elbow. I swung my right hand over in a hammer blow to bury my pistol butt into a head or shoulder or collar bone. I made human contact. I smashed again with my pistol and wrenched at theirs instinctively knowing their muzzle was clear of my body. Whatever hold they had was gone. I spun right and angrily cast away the burning gun from my left hand. As I looked up, I saw another wide-eyed face, mouth open, at the back of the ambulance. I leapt and punched at the face with my gun and burning left fist, and connected in a crunch. My momentum carried me forward and I could see into the ambulance. It had been tossed but there was no one in it. I twisted to get back into cover by the ambulance’s wheel where I started. A squeal came from under my left foot, where the first victim dropped. I smashed his face with my left fist in a hammer blow again to remove the threat.
The woman was on her knees, frozen, wide-eyed and mouth open, on the verge of tears.
“IT’S OK! IT’S OK!” I barked. I dragged her back behind the Audi’s engine. “STAY DOWN!” My left hand was burning.
“DELTA! CONTACT FRONT! Send one support!” I was uncontrolled as a result of anger and pain, shouting on the radio. I crouched beside the girl to look back at the ambulance and the damage, and brought my pistol up on the bonnet to repel any advance.
“Sierra! Inbound!” in my right ear. On the ground at the back of the ambulance was the face-up body of my second victim, whose legs were only visible to the knee due to the angle of the ambulance. The Audi’s bonnet blocked my view of my first victim but I knew he was beaten.
“Supporting, supporting!” Stan ran up from behind. His hand planted onto my shoulder.
Without turning, I said, “Contact front, two down here. At least one ahead, no visual. Vehicle’s are gone to the right, oncoming to the left. I need ice for my hand.”
“Get your rifle up,” said Stan. I clumsily stowed my pistol and swept my jacket aside to grip the TAR and planted it into my armpit then swung it up onto the bonnet. Stan dragged the woman back and practically flung her behind the first stationary car.
“Rear is clear. I’ll kill the lights,” he said.
Stan shot out the ambulance lights then moved further left to kill the first oncoming car’s lights.
“There’s a body up there and another car past it in the mid road. That’s where the third contact is. We need to clear forward or escape backwards.” I explained.
“Sierra, Oscar and Papa can you escape backwards? Is there room to turn?”
“Papa, unlikely. Traffic followed us down, blocking us behind. Difficult to turn around fast. Pass status.”
“Sierra, Delta mobile. Two contacts down. Unknown dispute ahead. If we can move the vehicles we can continue.”
Forward was the faster option. “Let’s spread wide in the dark, move forwards and get a view. Whoever I hit seemed like clowns or junkies,” I was regaining composure. “Watch your fucking head, buddy.” Stan only wore his mask.
Stan went left. I ran right into the verge, towards darkness.
Good job I’m wearing black.
“Sierra, position?”
“I’m three cars up on the left, in line with the body.”
“MYCHA! IVAN! MYCHA! Where are you! COME ON!” someone screamed from ahead. There was at least one more piece of prey. I crouch ran forwards to get past the paramedic body in the road and stay level with Stan.
“Delta, I’m passing the body.”
“Sierra, I’m two cars further up. There’s someone in the driver seat with a gun. Standby.”
Crackping. “AAHHH! AAHHHH!”
“Sierra, assaulting. Hold fire.” Stan ran out and rushed the car.
“GET OUT! GET OUT!” Stan was at the driver, ripping him out in almost one go. Blood spray was inside the windscreen. The screaming kept going. I ran into the open. I saw Stan violently stamping on his victim.
“Approaching front!” I shouted. I looked into the vehicle to clear it. In the back seat was another paramedic, laid out.
“Casualty in the rear!” I shouted.
“Clear front!” Stan’s response. “Fuck this, move these cars and go. You drive this off the road, I’ll move the bodies.”
Stan dragged the driver’s squirming, bleeding body to the stationary on-coming cars. I dived into the driver’s seat, and drove the car off into the verge.
“There’s one in the back of the car as well. The other crew.” I said.
“Leave ‘em. We’ve got to go. Let’s move the other one then shift the vehicles.”
“Oscar, Delta and Sierra. Pass status.”
“Sierra, we’re clearing the vehicles, standby. Move forwards if you can.”
“Delta, I need a burn kit and freeze spray.”
We scooped up the ambulance driver, moved her off the road and put her in the recovery position. I ran to the ambulance, jumped in and found the key in the ignition. I backed it away from the Audi, over some bumps and onto the verge.
Oh fuck. I might have just… I looked forwards to where the ambulance had been and there, partially illuminated was a body with tyre tracks across its crushed midriff. Just a metre past was another shape, more mangled.
Stan was at the Audi.
“There’s no key!” He shouted. “Help me.” I ran over and we pushed it to clear the lane.
“Sierra, road clear, returning. Caution two bodies in the road. Partly crushed.”
We ran back to the BMW. Ol was waiting with a can of freeze spray and a can of antiseptic. I pulled off my glove.
“Just freeze it, just freeze it! I’ll sort it properly later.” It was too dark to see detail. The cooling spray was welcome. “That’ll do. Any info on route, datacomms or anything? Any threats?” I asked.
“Looks OK to Bondareve and Chaplyne,” said Ol. “Christ, this is random as fuck! Let’s go.”
Driving with a first or second degree burn to the whole of my left palm was a fucking bitch. If only one shot had gone off, I’d probably have been fine. The second shot really pumped some heat through my glove.
Those fucking scrotes got served karma. Tough luck that they got in the way of the ambulance they robbed. Shoulda fucking stayed at home, boys.
That delay, that block was just what we didn’t need. High visibility, witnesses of some kind, violence, mess… from Chaplyne we had a straight three hours to get to the outskirts of Donetsk. We’d likely hit some other block and have to evade en route somehow, so the drive would be longer. Western Donetsk was already a military zone. The invasion just ramped up pre-existing difficulties getting into it.
“Delta, medical stop in Bondareve.” I had to sort my hand out. Leaving it too long would be the difference between a first and second degree burn, and possible permanent damage.
We stopped on the south side of a hamlet with a few back lanes and at least two ways out. Ol set to work while we talked. Ol hammered more freeze spray on, then gave it a full clean, applied antiseptic, burn cream and a single layer dressing. I could grip a cold pack for relief. Mobility was there. Some light painkillers would help. Fighting would override anything I felt. Some kinds of pain make you fight harder anyway. It depends how you use it.
Whatever had happened at that block, we didn’t need to understand it. We just had to get away from it.
“One thing,” Ol wondered. “If that contact was random shit, what’s the odds we’re going to see more of it? If that was a hold up, farm vans might be fair game. Or a nice BMW.”
“If that’s the threat, how’s that different to the blocks we’re really worried about?” Stan asked.
“If they rob us they’ll be robbing military and SBU guys. That could come back to them, so we might be able to face them down and intimidate them.” Spiker said. “If they just go for us immediately or don’t care, we’re dealing with that with max force anyway.” Spiker analysed. We agreed.
“What if it’s the cops or SBU eyeballing us and we engage too soon, then don’t kill them so they get an alert out?” Spiker’s question.
“We do our best to finish them. The cargo vans have to get clear. Stan and I will be the engagement. Cargo van engagements are a last resort. Plus we've got radio block on the snoops.” I said. We all agreed. “Seriously, that went south back there because of them, not me. I was scoping the scene from safety, trying to keep people back and controlled, then a girl ran up, mouthed off while the junkies were robbing the ambulance and then one of them came at her, right next to me with a pistol. I spent my hand on saving her. I really thought he was going to do something. There was already a body down and bullet holes in the ambulance windshield. And you saw they had the other medic in the car. Fuck knows what that was actually about. They were taking the drugs and the gas when I was at the ambulance. I went in there thinking I would help and move things about a bit for our priority, wave a badge, disturb an accident scene and keep going. Once the body and the guns came out, it was limiting.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Stan supported. “I saw enough. I took that guy’s hand off and gave him a good kick. If he survives, he won’t be so nasty in the future. The others… they had their chance.”
“Are there blood or guts on the vehicles?” I realised that the corpses may have left stains. We checked and cleaned off traces with some water.
“Bollocks.” Spiker had checked for intel updates from Home. “We have to change the route.”
The N15 was the major road east that we were going to take for speed into Donetsk, but we expected to have to turn off at some point. That point had come sooner than we’d hoped. Home’s intel showed a definite block at Kostyantynopil', half way along the N15. We’d have to turn south before then and take a more winding route. We directed the ZALA along the N15 up to Bahatyr, which was the last chance to turn south before the block at Kostyantynopil'.
There was an alert bleep instantly followed by three more together. Each of our snoops had detected a mobile phone transmission and trapped it. Someone in the convoy had used a phone.
“The drugs don’t work,” said Spiker, as he reached into the BMW and grabbed my snoop. It looked just like an aluminium laptop. With the hidden snoop console accessed we could see all the phone details like IMEI and IMSI number, handset type, phone numbers involved and the message. It said “We’re OK. On the way.”
The cargo van snoops were both working in suppression mode that would trap any signals sent from the cargo as protection against exactly this sort of problem. All the snoops were eavesdropping on cellular signals as a connected team of four units. The kit was powerful, we could do a lot of stuff with just one unit.
The problem wasn’t serious yet. We could tell from signal strength readings that it was the Gusevs or Balakins who’d turned on a phone in the first van and sent the message. We pinged the info to Home to get a trace on the recipient phone, which wasn’t in our database. It was likely that both phones were burners. If this was stupid but innocent, an escapee wouldn’t use their own phone to tell a relative’s own phone about their escape progress, and we’d ditched all the phones we’d collected. If this was planned subterfuge, the same would apply. We couldn’t know what was really going on unless we interrogated the cargo, and we didn’t have time for that.
“It’s a shit Nokia burner. We’ve trapped it. We can send a response to draw them out, assuming they stay awake?” Stan said.
“But if this is code, they’ll need to see an exact message back or they’ll be alerted,” said Ol. “Let’s leave it and see if they send out exactly the same message again. If they do, we can start suspecting codes.”
“Worst case,” I said, “we carry this all the way to the handover and pass the problem to the DPR with full knowledge. That’s manageable. They can do the interrogation without us.”
Now we’ve got an excuse to teach Mrs Gusev what “no” means and deliver that message with hard fists. That’ll be a learning experience for her.