Back to the kitchen. She grimaced and stepped over the father’s body to tear through the refrigerator, grabbing a couple bottles of water and some apples.
Then, still trembling, she went to the cupboard and seized an unopened package of cookies and some canned goods. She went to the drawers, throwing stuff everywhere, trying to find a can opener. Then she cursed, tossed the cans, and grabbed the rest.
She gathered more ammo from the soldiers, tucking it all into a pillowcase like some burglar, then found the keys to one of the snowmobiles in the pocket of a dead troop.
On the table in the entrance foyer sat a picture of the happy family. Halverson stared at it for a few seconds before charging outside.
After using bungee cords to fasten the gear inside the snowmobile’s small rear basket, she donned the helmet, fired up the engine, and ordered herself not to look back.
She sped away, heading due south, leaving a rooster tail of snow in her wake. The cold wind on her face began drying her tears, and after another moment, she slid down the helmet’s visor and leaned into the machine.
The fuel tank held about five liters, just over a gallon of gas, and the Russians had already used a liter to get to the barn. She wasn’t sure how far she’d get, but she’d ride until the tank was empty.
A broad, flat plain of snow lay ahead, and more trees stood on the far horizon. She steered for them.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“You’re wasting my time, Colonel.” Major Alice Dennison sat at her station in the command post, arms folded over her chest, and sneered at the broken and defeated Russian on the screen.
“I did not talk under the influence of your drugs.”
“Sorry, but you did.”
“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.