Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (17 page)

"I'll talk to Josef," he replied when Guy reminded him of the problem. "That guy wheels and deals with everything. I've no doubt he'll be able to help us."

He cursed himself for not retrieving some of the North Korean weapons and ammunition they'd left lying in the snow. It would have served them well, but now it was too late. Militia would already have surrounded the entire area.

Josef was hard at work, seemingly oblivious to the intense cold. He’d changed into a filthy, grease-stained overall, and another man was helping him. Similarly attired in a greasy overall, they were chatting animatedly as they stripped parts from the engine bay. Talley approached the two men, and Josef greeted him with a tight smile.

"This is Ivan. I promised him a bonus if he worked through the night. You're sure the Major is good for the money?"

"If he isn't, I'll kill him myself."

The pilot nodded gravely. "That should do it."

"Yeah, are you making any progress?"

He looked mournful. "We haven't so far. As soon as we do, we'll let you know, but I suspect it will take us well into the night."

 
He walked back into the warehouse and entered the office. Alessandra was there, and he was taken aback by how she looked. No more a filthy, dirt stained product of the battlefield; she looked neat and tidy, her hair smart, and he guessed she’d even managed to touch up her face with a little make-up.

Women! But dear Christ, she’s beautiful.

"You look good."

She smiled appreciatively. "Thank you.” She wrinkled her nose. “You look like shit, Abe. Why don't you clean yourself up? There's no hot water, but at least there’s running water. I can vouch for it. It's better than nothing."

"Thanks, I think I will."

He felt better when ten minutes later he emerged from the tiny bathroom. Alessandra was waiting, and she nodded her approval.

"You look almost human again."

“Thanks, I guess all we can do now is wait," he said, smiling.

"All we can do? We have this office to ourselves, Abe,” She gave him a meaningful glance, “and I've locked the door."

She moved toward him, and he was suddenly aware of the thick, cloying power of her sexuality. She smelt of soap and of woman, her natural musk mixed with a faint tinge of perspiration. It was overpowering, arousing, and he allowed himself to be seduced by her fragrance. He closed the distance, took her in his arms, and they kissed passionately, enjoying this tiny oasis of warmth in the bleak badlands of Siberia.

There was no bed in the office, no couch, and as their lips locked, their hands exploring each other's bodies, he lowered her gently to the threadbare rug on the floor and started to undress her. The cold was forgotten. His hands were shaking with passion. He struggled with the complicated series of clips and laces to remove her military gear, and then her underwear, but finally she lay naked before him, her magnificent body beckoning him to join her, to complete their union. He struggled out of his own uniform and underwear and knelt down over her. She looked up at him, her eyes misty with desire.

"Take me now, Abe. You can't know how much I need this."

He didn't reply, but he needed no more urging. His penis was already hard, throbbing with arousal as he eased into her, hearing her gasp of pleasure. They began to move their hips in together, causing him to go deeper and deeper inside her. He had to use every trick he knew to stop him from ejaculating before she was satisfied, and he set his mind to thinking about the operation. It wasn't easy.

He was acutely aware of the absurdity of the situation, making love to one of his officers, a beautiful young woman, on the floor of a filthy office. Both of them naked inside a warehouse in the bleak chill of a grimy Siberian city, yet their desire, their need, was so great they were both slippery with the intensity of their exertions, of the power of the sex.

When he climaxed, she came quickly afterward, and her screams bounced around the walls of the shabby old room. He could only hope the sound didn't travel to the men outside who were catching up with some rest. The sweat cooled fast on their bodies, and he pulled away from her, handed over her clothes, and began to put on his own kit. When they were both fully clothed, she kissed him.

"Abe, I have a confession to make. I needed you. More than you could possibly believe."

"It's mutual, believe me."

"Is it?" She considered for a few moments. "You weren't so friendly before."

"You know why. It was that business back in Seoul. It left me wondering what my life was all about, bringing that bastard over the 38th Parallel, just to have him murder those nurses. I mean…"

"It wasn't your fault," she interrupted.

"Tell that to the girls he killed,” he snapped.

Her face fell, and he realized their brief moment of love, of shared joy, was evaporating as he relived the bitter memories of the past. He smiled an apology. "Look, I’m sorry. I have to check on Josef again. Why don't you get some fresh air and come with me?"

She nodded, and they walked out into the warehouse. She lowered her head, and he noticed the men couldn't quite stop themselves from darting sly looks in their direction, especially Domenico Rovere. He glared at him.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"I was thinking about Shakespeare, Boss. A play called Much Ado About Nothing."

"I don't suppose there's a chance you'll keep it to yourself?"

"None, but it's very brief. 'Speak low if you speak love'.” He grinned, “Wise words, if I may say so."

Talley went to snap an angry retort, but he heard Alessandra giggling behind him, and he smiled as they walked out through the door.

Josef was still buried amid mechanical components, pipes, cables, and buckets of oil and grease. The cowling had been stripped from the nose of the aircraft, as well as some of the parts of the Shvetsov 9-cylinder supercharged radial engine. He saw them coming and climbed down, shaking his head.

"Nothing yet, my friends. We're working through the fuel lines, section by section, but it's a long job. These damned things weren't designed for easy access. My friend, Ivan, is buried inside the nose cone. I’ll have to drag him out by the ankles when he's done. I'll call you as soon as we find something."

"How much longer?"

"If we have to go through the entire system, another twelve hours possibly," Josef shrugged.

“I said no more than twelve hours in total.”

“I’m no saint. I can’t work miracles.”

He checked his wristwatch. It was already 1630 hours.

"Understood. If there's anything we can do to speed things up, let me know."

They returned to the warehouse where Guy had unearthed some of Josef's food supplies. He was helping Drew Jackson heat up a huge pan of stew on the grime-encrusted stove in the tiny kitchen.

"Boss, you're both in time for hot chow. Help yourselves."

He realized how hungry he was, and they snatched up tin plates and filled them with the strange looking concoction.

“What's in it, Guy?" he asked his number two.

"I haven’t a clue. A mixture of bear and reindeer, I’d imagine, with a heap of vegetables and beans I found in the food cupboard. Most of them were okay, not too much mold."

Captain Falco pulled a face, but they both wolfed the food down as if they hadn't eaten for the past twenty-four hours, which they hadn't.

"Any progress on the aircraft?" Guy asked while they were eating.

Talley told him what Josef had said. "If it takes him all night to fix it, we'll be in trouble trying to catch up with that locomotive. And, of course, it’ll be daylight when we reach Vladivostok, so no night assault. Not ideal for an ambush."

"Roger that. Is there any news from Yuri? He must know how things work in this neck of the woods, who to bribe to get hold of information, like the ETA of that locomotive. They must have a record as it passes along each section of track."

"Yeah, good point.”

But where is Yuri?

The Russian finally arrived at 0300 hours the following morning while Josef and Ivan were still knee deep in oil and grease. He gripped Talley in the familiar bear hug.

"We got here, my friend. I told you we'd make it. I see they’re making repairs to your aircraft. Does that mean it’s too late to catch up with the train?"

He explained how Josef hoped to have it fixed before the end of the night, and how they needed to find out how far the fleeing locomotive had progressed along the tracks. Yuri went outside to use his vehicle phone and came back a half-hour later. His expression was not happy.

"I spoke to some of my contacts in the State Railway. The locomotive is scheduled to skirt Vladivostok. They’re routing it on the direct line that runs down to Pyongyang. They'll be inside the border of North Korea in less than twenty-four hours."

Talley worked out distances. Three thousand kilometers to Vladivostok, and Christ only knew how much further before they reached the border, and then there was North Korea.

"We need another plane. We can't wait any longer for Josef," he thought aloud.

"My friend, this is Chita, in Siberia, not New York, London, or Paris. There is no other plane," Yuri laughed.

Guy was standing nearby and joined them. "We have to keep going with what we have, Boss. Everything else is in the lap of the Gods."

"And if the Gods are having a bad day?"

His number two shook his head. "In that case, I'd find a way of getting in contact with Admiral Brooks. They’ll have to use Tomahawks. There's no other way."

"Except the Tomahawks can't verify whether or not they've hit the right target. What if he’s moved the warheads again?"

Guy inclined his head. "That's true, but we can't make the Antonov go any faster. We have to accept we won’t catch up before they cross the border into North Korea."

The rest of his men had come out and were listening intently. He gazed around them, feeling the heavy weight of command pressing on him, of having to balance his men's lives against the urgent need to successfully carry out their operation and remove the greater threat to tens of thousands, maybe even millions of lives if Kim Jong-un got his greasy hands on nuclear weapons. Barrington was silent for once. Alessandra was staring at him, her face pale, willing him to say anything other than the words that would condemn them all. Josef had climbed down from the engine bay and watched him carefully. Finally, his gaze came to rest on Guy.

"You know we don't have a choice."

"We never did. It's why we do what we do, Boss. You may as well call it."

He studied the men, and they stared back at him. Waiting. "We have to follow that locomotive wherever it takes us. It looks like when we reach Vladivostok, we'll have to go on to North Korea."

"You won’t make it. No way!" Josef exclaimed.

He looked at the pilot. "Are you saying the Antonov won't be ready in time, or you're refusing to take us?"

He shook his head. "Neither. I'll take you,” he grinned. “I've nothing better to do, and I'd like to ram those warheads up the asses of those fucking Chechens. But if you look at the map, you'll see that flying to Vladivostok and then on to Pyongyang is a dogleg, and if we take that route, we won't beat the locomotive."

"You know a better way?"

"For twenty-five thousand dollars, I do."

"That's no problem." He saw Barrington jerk his head around in anger and astonishment, and signaled him to stay out of it. "Go on. How do we do it?"

Josef smiled. "It's easy, real easy. We take a shortcut. We fly direct. Across China."

"Uncle Alvi."

"Yeah, what is it, kid?"

Joshua Talley was the older brother, and even though he was only seven years old, he knew they were on the wrong route to their school. He should have been excited because Alvi's friend had brought along a bright yellow Hummer, with glittering chrome trims that spun when the wheels turned and smoked, blacked out windows. He knew all his friends would be envious he was riding in such an exotic vehicle. And yet, all he felt was fear, an uneasy apprehension he couldn't understand. Alvi’s friend was a big, swarthy man with an ugly, scarred face. When Joshua greeted him, the man had just glared at him through hard, black eyes and not replied. As they drove through the streets, both men lit up cigarettes, and he knew grown-ups weren’t supposed to smoke around children.

Everyone knows it’s unhealthy, don't they?

Yet worst of all was they were nowhere near where they should be. In fact, he was pretty sure they were heading in the opposite direction.

"My school isn't this way. You need to turn around and head back toward the city."

Alvi turned in his seat and stared at him. "Think you're a clever kid, do you?"

Joshua wasn't sure how to reply, so he said nothing. And then his younger brother, James, caught on to the tense atmosphere inside the car and began to sob. Alvi’s gaze slid over to him.

"Shut the fuck up, kid. You keep on crying, and you'll get a hard slap."

It didn’t work. James sobbed even louder, and Joshua decided enough was enough. He snapped.

"You shouldn't speak to my brother like that. You have to turn around and take us to school, or my mom will be angry. She’ll tell you off!"

Both men burst out laughing. "We wouldn't want your mom to be angry, would we? Tell you what; I have a call to make. As soon as I've finished, we'll get you to school. Is that okay?"

"Thank you, Uncle Alvi."

He felt a little better. That was, until they turned off the highway and drove along a remote farm track. The man with the scarred face pointed the Hummer straight at a barn. Its doors were wide open as if it was waiting for them, and he drove inside. He switched off the engine, jumped out of the vehicle, and closed the huge wooden doors, fastening them with a heavy bar that dropped into place and was secured with a large padlock.

"Let's go into the house," Alvi smiled. "We'll only be a short time, but you may as well wait inside."

"We don't want to get out of the car. We want to go to school."

His refusal was too much for the man. "Get out of the car, you little fucks," Alvi snarled. "If I have to ask you again, I'll give you a beating you won't forget. Now move!"

Joshua pulled James out of the vehicle, and they went into the farmhouse. It was old and dirty, as if it had been abandoned.

"In here, kids."

He looked at the door where Alvi pointed. He wanted to refuse, but he had to look after his younger brother, and it wouldn’t help to provoke the man into beating them. They went into the room. It was strange. Instead of ordinary walls, they were made of metal. It looked like aluminum, and when the door slammed shut, it was very thick and heavy. Joshua had never seen a walk-in freezer before, not even one that had long ceased to function, but he was astute enough to know that there was no way he could open that door. They were trapped, prisoners inside these weird metal walls.

Have we been bad? Is it some kind of punishment, something we’ve done?

He turned to James, who had collapsed into tears.

"Don't worry. I'll look after you. He won't keep us here for long. But just in case, I'll see if I can find a way out."

His younger brother nodded gratefully, then resumed his sobbing. It only took Joshua a few seconds to realize the only way out was through the thick, metal door.

Why is Alvi doing this to us?

* * *

It took much longer than they'd hoped. Josef and Ivan worked all through the night, and several times they thought they had the problem licked, but still the engine stubbornly refuse to start. They were all acutely aware of the speeding locomotive that was moving further and further away from them with every hour, every minute, every second that passed. And then, just as the first rays of dawn appeared on the distant horizon, they all heard a roaring noise that brought them out onto the tarmac. The engine popped and spluttered. Clouds of black smoke poured out of the exhaust, and then it stopped. Josef cursed and tried again, hitting the electric starter to coax the cold engine into life, and once again it roared and spluttered and smoked. But it didn’t stop, not this time. For several long minutes, it ran raggedly, obstinately refusing to surrender to the men who'd worked on it through the night. Twice it almost stopped again, but Josef managed to juggle the controls and keep it running. And then, as it began to warm and shrug off the frozen chill of the Siberian night, it settled into a steady beat.

"They've done it!" Guy shouted. "Thank Christ, we can get out of this place."

"Yeah, and get into a far worse one," Reynolds grumbled.

It was all show. They were all determined to move on and finish the operation, even if it meant venturing once more into the stronghold of Kim Jong-un, the personal fiefdom and stronghold of the savage and brutal dictator, overlord of North Korea.

Josef kept the engine idling while the men scrambled to board the ancient aircraft. There'd been a bad moment when Barrington once again laid down his objections, refusing to countenance the operation going forward.

"This is not something any of us can make a decision on, Talley," he snapped. "China is a paid-up member of the UN Security Council, and I would remind you they have the biggest army on earth. The same goes for their air force. I guess I don’t need to add the fact they’re a major nuclear power. You don't just climb aboard some toy aircraft like that one and think you can cross their territory with impunity. I doubt we’d even get a hundred kilometers before we’re shot out of the sky."

The Russian pilot was listening, and he began to speak.

"They won't shoot us out of the sky, Major," he said tiredly. Talley remembered the pilot had been working all night without a break. "I fly across the border from time to time, you know. Private charters, freight, that kind of thing."

"Smugglers!" Barrington spat out, his voice dripping with contempt.

They ignored him. "How will we find refueling facilities?" Talley asked, anxious to get off the ground before the engine stopped running.

Josef smiled. "The same way as we do it here in Russia. Using the American dollars provided by the good Major Barrington."

"No way," the MP snapped. "It isn't going to happen."

"We have to have that money," Talley told him, "but if you want to stay here, that's your choice."

Barrington spluttered and raged, but in the end decided to go along. It wasn't surprising. He knew if they made it through, he'd be branded a coward forevermore for abandoning them. The Mafiya leader, Yuri, wished them good luck, and his last act was to press a satellite phone into Talley's hands.

"You keep hold of this, and if you need anything, call me. The number's on speed dial, and I mean anything. I have a score to settle with those fucking Chechens, and when they get back to Russia, I intend to collect."

Talley thanked him, and they boarded the elderly Antonov. Borodin’s men drove off in the trucks to continue their unending battle with the Russian authorities, and the personal vendetta they waged against their deadly foes, the Chechens; the treacherous Islamic nation that was a byword for cruelty and brutality.

Echo Six now faced the next tussle with life and death, Josef’s hair-raising take off. But on this occasion there was a strong headwind blowing down the runway, and after he’d taxied into the wind, the take off was almost copybook, as near as it could be in a flying junkyard. He kept the aircraft flying low, explaining with a grin they’d need to cross into China at treetop height to avoid the fighter interceptors, as well as the missile perimeter guarding the long border. When they were settled into a straight and level flight, Talley went forward. He passed a grim-faced Jonas Barrington and went to sit on a backpack between the pilot and co-pilot seats. That way, at least he’d know immediately if anything went wrong.

No, not if anything goes wrong. When. It will happen, sooner or later.

After a short time, Alessandra Falco went back to the cabin to catch up with some sleep, and he moved into the co-pilot’s seat. They had a long flight, around two thousand kilometers, the first leg over China, a nation that would be less than impressed by the intrusion of NATO Special Forces. The second leg would be over a country whose military would do everything in their power to kill them at once if they ever learned of their existence. He smiled, recalling the old Chinese curse, 'may you live in interesting times'.

* * *

The flight across China was a bone-chilling, white-knuckle nightmare. Josef headed southeast, and in less than two hours, they were crossing the border, flying along an unguarded and remote river valley, with rocky cliffs clawing at them only meters from the wing tips. After several kilometers of gut wrenching flying, holding their breath and waiting for the moment when one of the wings touched the rocks and the plane spiraled into the river below, they flew out onto the flat open landscape. There was no sign of any human habitation. Nothing. This was China, a third of the world's population. Yet despite the millions, billions of Chinese, a country so vast it was still possible to travel long distances without seeing a soul.

"How will you manage to refuel, Josef? They won’t let us land at a commercial airport, not in China, certainly not without any documents. They’ll blow us out of the sky before our wheels hit the tarmac."

The Russian chuckled. "You know the problem with a country this size? One side doesn't know what the other side is up to. This engine will run on pretty well anything. Probably even diesel fuel at a pinch, although I haven't tried it yet. There are a few roadside gas stations in remote areas, and they're usually privately run. I've done it before. All of us smugglers do it when we need fuel. We just land on the highway, taxi up to the pump, and fill up. As long as you pay them in American dollars, they're more than happy. Besides, they always charge us twice the going rate, so there's no way they'd hurt a lucrative trade by reporting us to the authorities." He looked at Talley and smiled. "I know you've been watching me fly this thing. You look like you know how everything works, you want to give it a try?"

He nodded, put his feet on the rudder bars, and took hold of the control horns. It was wonderfully easy to manage, not unlike the Piper Cherokee or sport and leisure aircraft. The big heavy biplane had all the stability of that design, yet its heavy weight and slow speed made it a much more stable platform than its lighter cousins.

"They made over eighteen thousand of these things," Josef told him. "They sold many of them to the Chinese, so we won't look out of place when they see us flying in their airspace."

"What if they do ask us to identify ourselves?"

He smiled. "Most of the radios on these old things don't work. They’re an old analogue design, very unreliable. You just pretend you haven't heard them." He chuckled. "Until, of course, they send up a fighter interceptor and fire a shot across the nose. In that case, it's time to land and face the music."

"What happens then?"

"It normally costs in the region of five thousand dollars to get them to look the other way, but it's better than spending time in a Chinese prison."

"I can believe that."

They flew on for another two hours, and then Josef told him to duck out of sight.

"I'm taking her down to fill up with fuel. It's a gas station I've used before, but if they see soldiers in the cockpit, it'll be hard to explain."

Talley nodded and squeezed himself back into the cabin, where he could watch out of a small observation window while Josef landed on a wide, deserted stretch of highway and taxied up to a single pump gas station. The owner appeared and seemed unsurprised that an aircraft had put down outside his premises. By a combination of sign language and waving Barrington's American dollars, the Russian persuaded him to fill up the tank. It was a hand-cranked pump, and it took a half-hour while they all sweated in the stale air of the cramped fuselage. Then it was time to take off again. When they were in the air and safely away, Josef called him forward to take over the controls.

"I need to get some rest," Josef said when he was seated. "Hold her on this course, and wake me in two hours. Don't go above thirty meters, or they'll pick us up on radar. At this height, anyone seeing us will assume it's an agricultural flight, crop-dusting or something similar."