"I did not!"
"You told us everything you know-which is, unfortunately, not enough."
Colonel Pavel Doletskaya's brows came together, and he began nervously pulling at the white whiskers on his chin. "You tell me what I said."
"All right. Operation 2659 is the invasion of Alberta."
"That's shocking," he said sarcastically. "I can't believe you beat that out of me."
"The twenty-six represents the duration of time you've given yourselves to gain full control of the province. But if, after twenty-six days, you've failed in that mission, the second part of your plan takes place, activation code five-nine."
Doletskaya's mouth began to open, as he realized that he had, in fact talked, but not willingly, as he pretended he wanted to do now.
She went on, "The snow maiden was, in fact, Colonel Viktoria Antsyforov, with whom you were having an affair until she went home one night and set fire to her apartment, killing herself and four of her neighbors."
"I didn't tell you that!"
"Yes, you did. Maybe you thought you were remembering it, but you were telling us. I'll ask you one last time, but I don't expect you know the answer: The activation code is for what? A second invasion? A tactical missile attack? What?"
He sighed loudly for effect. "I'm not aware of any activation code."
"Yes, you are. She told you about the code. But she never told you what it meant. And then she died. So we're finished talking, you and I."
"Wait a moment, Major. If I told you everything already, then why did you agree to meet with me?"
She shrugged. "Just for confirmation."
"No, I don't believe that. I think . . . I think you are attracted to me."
"You're a sick bastard."
"No, I think you are attracted to me because I have control over you. And you like that. You are always in control. And it's so hard, isn't it? Wouldn't it be better to let me take care of everything? Maybe we can work together. Maybe there's still hope for you and I."
She rolled her eyes and thumbed off the call.
But she was trembling, visibly trembling. He was under her skin again, coursing through her veins like a poison.
She wanted to kill him.
Because maybe . . . he was right.
"We'll split up and flank them," said Black Bear over the radio. He looked up at Sergeant Raymond McAllen. "I'll need you guys up top."
McAllen nodded, but he had other plans.
Sergeant Rule had gone to another back door and had spotted a chopper on the ground, just behind the fire crew's garage. The pilot and co-pilot were still inside, the rotors spinning. McAllen wasn't sure if they were having a technical problem or just waiting to pick up troops, but he didn't care. All he saw was an enemy bird worth capturing and taking back into enemy territory to pick up that fighter pilot.
Better to fly in with a big red star tattooed on their butts instead of a bull's-eye.
But he was still torn between helping out these SF guys and the mission.
Oh, damn, he had to go with the mission; it came down from The Man himself.
He had to do . . . what he had to do. The apologies would come later, if these guys made it out.
"Khaki, you think you can fly that thing?"
The pilot made a face. "Don't insult me. If it's got a rotor, I can fly it."
"All right," McAllen said, eyeing the entire group. "We make a run for the garage. I don't think they can see us from this angle. Then from the garage we move to the bird." McAllen looked once more at Khaki. "Will a couple of holes in the canopy be a big deal?"
"Don't chance that. Just show 'em a grenade and get 'em to open up."
"All right then. Palladino? Gutierrez? You set up outside to cover."
The sniper and medic nodded.
"Let's go!"
During the 1970s there was a secret military research facility near Leningrad, where according to some former Soviet chemical weapons scientists Kolokol-1 was developed. The drug took effect within a few seconds and left victims unconscious for two to six hours.
In 2002, Chechen terrorists took a large number of hostages in an incident known as the Moscow theater siege. Kolokol-1 was used against them; however, large doses of the drug might have contributed to the deaths of more than one hundred of the eight hundred hostages.
Intelligence gathered from Russian Federation defectors between 2018 and 2020 indicated that the Russians had made further refinements to the incapacitating agent in order to make it "more safe," though they had thus far not used it against civilian populations.
Consequently, Vatz felt a deep sense of dread as he and Captain Godfrey stepped over the soldier they had killed with the grenade and headed down to the ground floor of the town hall, where they found the mayor and half a dozen other town leaders lying on the floor, a beer can-size canister still emitting gas beside them.
They checked for pulses. "Still alive over here," said Godfrey, voice muffled through his mask.
"Here, too."
"Looks like they're hitting them where they find them with small concentrations."
"Good. We may not need our masks outside."
They hustled out of the building, rushed around to the corner, both slamming themselves against the wall as two Spetsnaz troops wearing masks rounded the opposite corner themselves.
Vatz caught the first one with his rifle, rounds stitching up the soldier's armor and reaching his head.
But the second troop was already firing, his rounds drumming into Vatz's armored chassis and knocking him off his feet.
Captain Godfrey stormed forward, unleashing a vicious salvo, drawing within a couple meters of the guy until the Russian went down, blood spraying inside the mask.
With his chest sore from all the fire, the wind still knocked out of him, Vatz pushed himself up on his elbows, blinked hard.
Just as Captain Godfrey sank to his knees, then fell forward, his rifle clacking to the frozen pavement.
Wrenching off his mask, Vatz got shakily to his feet and staggered forward, reaching the captain. He rolled Godfrey onto his back, removed the mask.
"Captain . . . sir . . ."
Vatz undid the quick release straps of Godfrey's armor, tossed the vest aside, saw the two bullet holes in the captain's neck, another just under his earlobe.
He checked the captain for a carotid pulse, got one: weak and thready but there.
"Band-Aid, this is Bali, over?"
The team's senior medical sergeant, Jac Sasaki, answered, his voice tense, gunfire echoing behind him. "Bali, I can hardly hear you, over?"
"I need you here, south side town hall. Berserker Six is down, over."
"What? I can't hear you."
"Berserker Six is down!" Vatz repeated his location.
"Roger that! On my way!" cried the medic.
Vatz switched channels to call Warrant Officer Samson. "Black Bear, this is Bali, over."
"Bali, this is Black Bear, make it quick!"
"Berserker Six got hit. He's still alive. I say again, Berserker Six was hit. Got Band-Aid on the way."
"Roger that, Bali. I'll notify Zodiac Six and coordinate with him. Looks like they're spreading out now, some heading for the neighborhoods. We need to take out as many as we can, right here, right now, before they all turn into snipers, over."
"Roger that, and they're using gas. Looks nonlethal, over."
"Yeah, what they call nonlethal just kills you slower. Tell you what. You stay put. I'll send over a truck."
"Roger that, standing by. Bali, out."
Vatz checked Godfrey's neck again for a pulse, put his ear to the man's mouth, listening.
They wouldn't need Band-Aid now.
He swore, and dragged Godfrey's body to the side of the building.
The guy was a good captain, not the usual token officer sent to do his time with an ODA, then go on to lead brigades. He'd really wanted to learn. And hell, he wasn't even thirty years old yet.
Band-Aid called on the radio to say he was almost there. Vatz didn't stop him. They'd pair up, get down in the alley between the town hall and another office building, and remain there until Black Bear's truck arrived.
The sounds of whomping rotors kept Vatz tight to the wall. He looked up, saw one of the civilian birds banking overhead at just two hundred feet.
Just behind it came one of the Ka-29s, narrowing the gap, its four-barreled machine gun blazing until the civilian bird's tail rotor was chewed apart by 7.63 mm rounds, its engine beginning to smoke, fuel leaking from its tanks.
But then a glorious sight from the ground: a Javelin missile rose to cut across the blue midday sky, its exhaust plume trailing.
Before Vatz could fully turn his head, the Ka-29 burst apart, the fireball so close that Vatz knew he had to get out of there. He shoved arms beneath Godfrey's armpits and dragged the captain's body toward the back of the building to escape the secondary explosions.
Good thing he did. The debris was already crashing down along the wall, and just as the larger parts of the helo's fuselage hit with echoing concussions and multiple booms, Band-Aid hustled up and dropped down to the captain.
The medic was a Japanese-American with a sparse beard who never seemed relaxed, always "on." He dropped his medical bag, about to get to work. "How long has he been unconscious?"
"He's dead."
"Aw, hell. I liked him."
"Just move up front, look for Black Bear's truck. They're coming for us."
"You got it, Sergeant."
Vatz glanced once more at the fallen captain. And once again, it was always somebody else.
Cursed? Lucky? He didn't want to think about it anymore. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep.
And for just a second, he did just that.
There in the darkness of a dark, damp alley in Moscow lay his old friend Zack with a gaping bullet hole in his head.
Zack's eyes snapped open. "Vatz, man, it's not so bad here. If you want, we could hang out."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you're just delaying the inevitable. Those boys from the Tenth probably won't get here in time. Maybe you'll weaken this recon force, but once their BMPs come rolling down, you guys are all dead. Unless, of course, you run for it."