Svetlana bent, unholstered the pistol on his belt, cocked it and unceremoniously shot him in the chest and head before turning to the fallen officer.
She walked up to the Colonel, a large patch of blood over the area of his solar plexus. He raised an arm weakly, wrist cocked and palm open, and he tried to speak but she fired twice in rapid succession before he could voice whatever it was he meant to say. The sound of the gunshots echoed off the hillsides.
She turned back to the old truck, not looking at the pistol as she made if safe with practiced ease and reached behind, tucking it into her skirt next to her spine.
“Don’t just sit there, help me!”
She retrieved the zip gun and the officers’ pistol, handing that last item to their CIA contact and telling him to move down the road a ways and keep a lookout along the route the jeep had come.
It is not called ‘dead weight’ for nothing, and it took all three women to haul the bodies into the jeep, strap them in to prevent the bodies floating to the surface and then push it off the road onto the steep slope.
With a last straightening of the wheel Svetlana leant in and released the handbrake, jumping back quickly as the jeep began to roll down the hill.
Its impact with the river was unexpectedly loud.
They stood there panting with exertion, staring down hill.
“Good.” said the Russian girl.
Pat and Caroline turned about to face her open mouthed at the seemingly cold remark, in as much shock at the sudden chain of events as of being witness to the violence meted out by someone they had believed to be mere eye candy, intelligent no doubt but ultimately eye candy incapable of such cold blooded and applied violence.
“What?”
Svetlana pointed upwards and the two American air women followed the finger and saw snowflakes.
“With luck it will hide the evidence for a while.” Svetlana said and then hurried over to the truck. “Come on, we need to get out of here before they are missed.”
The remainder of the journey was in silence.
On arrival at the safe house nearer the capital Svetlana gave the contact a package and instructions, before he continued on into Moscow, after which a satellite phone was assembled, just long enough to send a single code word.
First contact with the soviet airborne brigade was made by the local police, the fire fight between the crew of the patrol car and half a dozen paratroops was short, but the policemen got a message out by radio that airborne troops had landed in force.
An hour later the advance platoons of the brigade began engaging the security company around the depot, the heaviest weapon the paratroopers had was mortars, but they had weight of numbers and held a 13-1 advantage over the NATO defenders.
SACUER evacuated with his staff down the mile long tunnel that took them through to the next valley, after destroying all the equipment that could not be removed. An infantryman by trade, General Allain insisted that none of his staff get too comfortable being in one place, relocating was a well-practised drill. Despite all that, they had a problem starting the tractor unit for the miniature railway which delayed them by ten minutes, but the blast doors closed behind them as the entourage made good its escape at 20mph down the slight gradient. At the far end the computer base units and other essentials were loaded into elderly but well maintained M113 armoured personnel carriers. The entrance to the escape tunnel was a dummy pumping station, beyond that lay a gravel track that ran along one side of the steeply forested valley. A blast door yawned open on hydraulic rams to reveal the interior of the grey concrete shell that concealed the tunnel existence.
Canadian military policemen swung open the heavy doors of the ‘pumping station’, snow had fallen to a couple of inches deep on the ground and had coated the trees and bushes but the winter wonderland effect was marred by the smell of gun smoke and explosives. A figure clad all in white, stepping out of the tree line had the men taking cover. The lone figure had its arms outstretched and an MP-5, with a long sound suppresser at the business end, held reversed in its left hand.
The challenge was made by the Captain commanding the close protection team, and satisfied with the strangers answer he called him forward into the building.
Removing his helmet and white thermal head-over peered at the persons present until he saw the man he was looking for and recognition showed in his face.
General Allain nodded his assent to a staff officer on the question of the egress route they would take and ordered the security company to begin a withdrawal, and took from him the report from Geilenkirchen AFB. Turning on his heel he strode over to the newcomer.
“Major Thompson, how did it go?” he enquired in English.
The squadron commander of G Squadron, 22 SAS took the hand proffered by SACUER and answered in perfect French. “Pretty good sir, they would have put up a stiff fight if we’d let them, but we had them zeroed in right from the off. They were dressed and equipped as Belgian paras, and I don’t think they were planning on taking any prisoners sir as they also had flame throwers, which are not surgical instruments in anyone’s book.”
“Any casualties, any prisoners?”
“Two of my Toms are walking wounded… we didn’t really give the opposition the chance as it wasn’t exactly a ‘prisoner friendly’ kind of ambush sir.” Major Thompson’s Squadron had spent the last nine days lying in wait for the Spetznaz team, dug into the side of the valley and its approaches. NATO had been fully aware that the enemy had acquired the plans for this bunker, from a KGB traitor they had on the books years before. It had been a reasonable assumption that a ploy of some kind would be used to get the supreme commander away from the safety of the bunker where Special Forces could capture or kill him, and so the SAS had lain in wait in anticipation.
“I have another job for you major… Geilenkirchen AFB was overrun this morning and the facilities extensively damaged. The biggest loss was not the maintenance facilities and airframes, but the aircrews, operators and ground crews. A number escaped, but the enemy forces executed all but two of those who were captured. Those two survivors, a male and a female technician were both raped and had the thumbs of both hands cut off.”
Major Thompson frowned.
“Excuse me… did you say both were raped?”
“That is correct. I am of course not advertising what took place, but no doubt word will spread nonetheless. All of the enemy force had withdrawn before a counter attack could be mounted, but I want you to attach one troop to tracking these animals down. I want to send a message back to Moscow, that if they are going to employ Balkan style terror tactics in complete contravention to the established rules of war, then they are seeding the wind!” He handed across a hand written operation order, which the British officer read before tucking it away inside his smock.