Patriot Son

by T A Walters

  “Major ain’t so bad,” Scuba Bill noted.

  JP added, “Just got the brains of a gumball machine is all.”

  Scuba Bill thought about that remark, and while he thought about it, he realized Major Edson could quickly get on one’s nerves. He could also see where the Major might seem brainless at times, with his awkwardness and bumbling ways. It could be the Major was better-suited filing paperwork and preparing transfer orders as opposed to the rigors of infantry and reconnaissance.

  Scuba Bill spoke, “Once you get to know the Major, you’ll change your opinion of him.”

  “Why, have you?”

  Avoiding the question, Scuba Bill went to focusing his energy on pulling the cable by asking, “You think the cable is broken in the conduit, eh?”

  JP rubbed his hands together, “Only one way to find out.” Bringing up tension on the cable, JP motioned to Scuba Bill to relax the winch slightly while he wrapped a strip of red plastic tape around the cable as a marker. “Ok William, bring up the tension easy.”

  They both seemed delighted to see the cable move away from the conduit and inch at a time. It looked like a smooth, steady pull, and as Scuba Bill reeled in the cable, the tension gauge began to indicate the tension easing. The winch sped up to where the cable was moving around a foot or so a second until the last of it plopped out of the conduit onto the ground. Scuba Bill shut off the winch, and while he and JP stared blankly at one another, JP finally sighed and said,” Time to go fetch the trencher and a bunch of conduit.”

  Out of a hundred yards, only 20 or so feet of cable came out of the conduit. The rest of the broken wire lay inside with the rest of it.

  “Cable is burned to a crisp,” Scuba Bill muttered.

  Chapter 15

  ~~ Hunter Airbase Georgia~~

  A few weeks had passed since recruiting Rita and her brother Richard into the services of the Russian Army. Viktor was proud of the progress they made in their studies of the Russian language and culture. Rita surprised Viktor by reciting from an old playbill, ‘Peter and the Wolf.’ Her natural ability to adapt to the dialect was amazing in addition to Richard’s progress which was second to none.

  Viktor studied the faces of both Rita and Richard and what he saw reminded him of a time long ago in Kosovo. The gaunt faces of childhood friends, and the fogginess of their eyes that often stared off into images unseen, yet Viktor knew what those eyes saw. For some, it was images of hope and a life that would be better someday, while for others it was images of the foreseeable end. In the latter stages of losing all hope for survival, desperation becomes the mechanism that drove Rita and her brother to the crimes of theft and robbery. However, now, to see the color and sparkle in their eyes filled Viktor with a warm feeling. Rita called Viktor a hero, and it was then on that Viktor felt a special bond with Rita and Richard; for he’d never thought him to be a hero to anyone before now.

  Carrying a box of experiments from the commissary kitchen, namely a box of American donuts, Viktor whistled a tune as he walked to the little classroom he’d decorated weeks before. Expecting to see the bright morning faces of his students, Rita and Richard, Viktor was faced with an empty classroom. He shoved the box of donuts on his desk and then reached over to pick up a small piece of wrinkled paper. While he read the note, he slowly sank to the corner of his desk, his hand raking through the thick mane of his blond hair. In the letter signed by Rita, it explained how she and her brother felt they couldn’t fit in with the Russian culture and that it was best for the both of them to leave at once.

  Viktor carefully set the note back down on his desk, and then picked it up again to study it in detail. There was something wrong here. In the letter, the handwriting seemed stiff and stilted in the verbiage used to describe Rita’s intent to leave with her brother Richard. Viktor thought a moment. He had not introduced the Russian alphabet to Rita and her brother, and yet her note bore examples of the Russian alphabet. Viktor was skilled in both Russian and English to know the difference between them, and although this note described the fact and the reason behind them leaving here, it was written using Russian alphanumeric. Containing a backward facing R’s were just one of the clues giving Viktor substantial evidence that this note was written by a Russian and not an American.

  Within minutes Viktor found him back at his private living quarters, out of breath and gathering two pistol magazines, a pistol, and a combat survival knife and leather sheath. The man who kidnapped his students was extremely dangerous, he knew. Boris Durov, otherwise known as the ‘oddly dressed’ man, was behind this kidnapping and getting Rita and her brother back safely was highly unlikely. Wherever Boris took them, Viktor was certain it would be their last outing away from the base. Boris, being an Intelligence Officer with the KGB, had certain immunities from social and military justice but could run the agency’s business by the seat of his pants. He could make decisions and do things on a whim with only the excuse that he was doing it for the betterment of the cause.

  Viktor stood questioning Boris Durov’s secretary on Boris’s whereabouts. The secretary wasn’t sure. Nonetheless, she offered, “He left here with a young man and woman after fetching keys to a vehicle in the motor pool.” Rubbing her chin in thought the secretary added, “I believe he mentioned to the young pair, that they were going on an outing and that he would meet you there?”

  Viktor grabbed a set of keys and dashed outside before looking down at the keys to determine which vehicle it was he was borrowing. It was an airport tug, loud, and however slow, it beat walking down to the end of the main runway where it was certain that Boris had taken Rita and Robert.

  Halfway down the runway, his eyes squinting; he could barely see a car parked at the end near the woods, and with his heart pounding in his chest, he knew it belonged to Boris Durov. From behind the wheel of the tugger, Viktor pulled-up next to Boris’s car watching as he did, Boris rolling the dead bodies of Rita and Richard down a slope into the woods. He was too late to save them, and as he exited the airport tug, Viktor slid his survival knife from its sheath and took an upside-down grip on the handle just so as the blade remained concealed at his forearm, the razor-sharp edge facing outward; the movement from the vehicles was smooth and fluid, so natural that Boris never saw the hidden knife in Viktor’s hand.

  Boris turned sideways and scowled, pointing his arm out over the wooded slope, “See what happens when you defy Intelligence Protocol? I told you twice that you were out of line trying to recruit foreign agents to the cause. You have no idea the danger you were about to bring down on us!” Boris pursed his lips and stuck out his chest before announcing that not only he was permitted to recruit undercover agents. “So it is I who has to clean up your mess.”

  Viktor walked up to Boris saying, “So Mr. Durov, I am to thank you?”

  Boris buckled forward when Viktor sunk the 10 inches of cold steel into Boris’s gut. The razor edge of the blade ripped all the way to his sternum as Viktor nearly lifted Boris by the handle of his knife. Once he had eased Boris to the ground, he wiped the blood from his blade on Boris’s shirt and then dragged him by his tie to the rear of the automobile where he tied him to the bumper. Apparently still clinging on to life, Viktor kicked the pistol out of Boris’s hand before heading into the woods to retrieve the bodies of Rita and Richard.

  With Rita and her brother loaded into the back seat of the automobile, Viktor drove back to Boris Durov’s office and went inside to tell his secretary to inform funeral services to collect the bodies of Mr. Durov, Rita, and Robert. He waited outside, sitting under the shade of an oak tree and staring out to a group of men playing basketball when the funeral services van pulled up and stopped next to the car with Boris Durov’s body roped to the back bumper. The two men from the mortuary exited the van, eyes wide at the sight of the man nearly stripped of his clothes from being dragged a mile down an aircraft runway; look back over their shoulders to the voice behind them. Viktor had stepped out of the shadow of the oak tree to tell them o
f where to find Rita and Robert’s bodies.

  Viktor, his head hung low as he walked back to his quarters to await his arrest and incarceration, stopped briefly to watch the bodies of Rita and Richard being loaded into the back of the van. In his hands, he clutched a small bracelet made of silver wire, and along the wire slid a few tiny turquoise beads. Viktor slipped the small bracelet into his shirt pocket and rubbed his puffy eyes with the back of his clenched fist, rest well my dear friends.

  ~~~~

  Russian Army General, Gregor Alexei Pestro stood outside the jail where his son Viktor sat. He motioned for the Russian MP to let him in to talk to Viktor. However, now, neither felt like talking, so instead Gregor paced the floor inside the cell and quietly sighed, his son’s face peered down at the floor between his knees while he sat on the edge of the cot. Viktor softly muttered, “I am not sorry father, for what I have done.”

  Gregor stopped his pacing and paused a moment looking up at the ceiling, then down again to his son, “Between you and I, somehow I believe I’d have done the same. Boris was not a person who lent himself to anyone’s friendship. He was suspicious of everyone, even I.”

  Viktor snapped his attention to his father’s words, looking up to him to share a diffident smile and a slow nod of his head. “I did what came to me the instant I saw him destroy Rita and Richard as if they were dogs. But you, father, wanted to see Boris dead?”

  Gregor raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips, then slowly nodded. He turned to face the wall, trying to hide the guilt. “About a year ago, when the plans of this invasion were decided on, Boris approached me in private to tell me in so many words that my family’s future depended on the success of the takeover of America. This operation was personal with him as well as his threat of murdering our family.”

  He could hear Viktor swallowing hard. “You didn’t report him?”

  “How so? The KGB interprets such reports as a figure of merit to their officer’s dedication to the state. A report such as this would have given Boris higher regard for dedication – maybe even gotten him a higher rank.”

  “You should have killed him back then.”

  “No son,” Gregor breathed turning to face Viktor. “An eye for an eye.”

  It was for his son to realize that killing over a threat held no basis for justice as opposed to that of killing a killer out of revenge for loved ones.

  “So you would have waited until this skunk killed our family before you got revenge?”

  Gregor replied, “You be the judge of that.” A frown spread across his face as he placed his hand on Viktor’s shoulder. “In the decision de facto of the Russian Politburo and as general and chief commander of this base operation I regrettably will have to judge you guilty and punished you to death before a rifle squad.” Viktor saw his step father’s eyes well up with tears. “There is no other way. I’m sorry my son.”

  Gregor clapped his hands together twice for the MP to let him out of Viktor’s jail cell, and as he walked away, he pondered of how the life of his son was now in his hands. Gregor’s wife, Helena, would never forgive him, for the blood of their son would be on his hands. Forever be the curse, his duty of judge fell heavy on him and with that the knowledge he’d have his son executed for the crime of murdering a high ranking intelligence officer of the KGB.

  Chapter 16

  ~Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Center~

  Southern California

  Commodore Min Li of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy and Los Alamitos base commander holstered his 9mm pistol and then crossed his arms. He gave a sideways glance to Ping Chou, his interpreter and smiled, “Now ask them why they come here?”

  Abdul Medina’s interpreter stepped forward directing the question to Abdul, “Commander Li wants to know why you come here?”

  “Tell him we were invited here to talk over the business of war strategy.”

  Min Li nodded his head after hearing the translation. “Tell them to go back and return with respectable attire, and then we might discuss such plans.”

  Walid’s mouth drooped open with what he felt was Min Li’s insolent manner of speaking to Abdul Medina. “We will go and return to destroy you and your base,” said Walid.

  Abdul glared at Walid, then turned to his interpreter and instructed him not to repeat Walid’s threat to Min Li. However, Abdul was shocked to hear the threat translated by Ping Chou to Min Li instead. “Tell them they are free to leave,” replied Min Li.

  Abdul turned and with his entourage in tow went aboard Air Force One. Min Li ordered his second in command to have massive artillery support standing by. Min knew once Air Force One left the runway, the aircraft’s Electronic Counter Measure systems would arm and it would be near impossible to bring the plane down. Not only Min Li knew this but also his weapons expert knew this well, so Min Li was confident the job would be done efficiently.

  While Air Force One approached the end of the runway, all seemed as it should, except for taking on 60 caliber cannon fire. The flight deck’s guided missile alerts blaring away while the aircraft yawed to avoid being struck; chaff canisters deployed and safety systems deploying. Such evasive actions by Air Force One continued beyond the first 100 miles at which point a low cruising altitude was reached. The aircraft struggled to maintain cabin pressure as hundreds of 60 caliber artillery rounds fired by Chinese gunners ripped into the fuselage while the plane made an approach for takeoff, leaving what armored piercing rounds did best. Some of the shells penetrated through the layers of Kevlar® Fabric lining inside the walls of the fuselage, with such force that knocked several staff members, personal aides, and other personnel to the floor.

  Second, in command, Tao Chou brought forth a worried expression on his face when he turned to Min Li, “They will be back to try to destroy us.”

  “So it is said by the tacticians of war, who are so foolish to reveal a threat,” Min Li rubbed his hands together, “Not only will we be ready, but it will be a pleasure to have them test our military forces. I will relay the challenge to our battle fleet at sea at once.”

  Chinese fighter jets were ordered to the base to conduct air routine air patrols immediately, while Min Li set up ‘no-fly zones’ clear to the California/Nevada state line. Min Li ordered, a Chinese invasion of the Los Angeles Refinery (Tesoro), Wilmington, to help keep wartime fuel supplies going. While more additional battle groups arrived off the Pacific coast, there were shortages of nothing. In fact, Min contemplated sending out airstrikes to help soften Abdul’s forces.

  ~~~~

  Tao Chou dashed in to see what orders Min Li had for him. “I want American Pizza!” exclaimed Min slapping a tee square on the desk holding maps with sector coordinates drawn on them. “With much cheese and a copious layer of pepperoni sausage.”

  Tao Chou nodded and while at attention asked, “Anything else sir?”

  “Pepsi,” he barked. “Now go!”

  Chinese military personnel had group assignments, such as rotating base leave on certain days. This was Min Li’s way of keeping mess hall staff to a minimum on base. Only those groups not on base leave rotation would be served breakfast and dinner on the base. Those on leave would eat at nearby restaurants operated by Chinese cooking personnel, with little or no American Culinary recipe’s lost in translation. The restaurant coverage included many favorite fares; McDonald's, Outback Steakhouse, Pizza Hut, plus traditional Chinese restaurants and many more including KFC where personnel could enjoy Kentucky fried duck and mashed potatoes.

  All these many splendid eateries were Min Li’s idea based on his love of military strategies of the great warriors and generals of the past. Such were Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Napoléon Bonaparte who said the secret of his success was keeping his army well fed. It was General Bonaparte who once quoted that an army travels on its stomach. Min had eaten his share of rice and purslane in his life and knew it would be no more. He grew to see the world the way Alexander the Great had thousands of years ago. No Middle Easter
n enemy or Russians would stand in his way. The entire state of California was his; soon the rest of the 47 states would bow to his hand. Hawaii and its surrounding islands would be an easy continent to conquer, and at last, he would make his home there.

  ~~~~

  ~~Chihuahuan Desert Viet Nam Memorial underground storage Base~

  Joe Wyatt’s attention was riveted to Derrick Kehoe’s discussion on the UH-1 Helicopter. Max rate of climb, altitude ceiling, fuel consumption, range, and speed. There was so much to learn, and he and Derrick were fast becoming friends.

  “That 4A over there is my favorite chopper,” said Derrick proudly. “I’ve had that baby in a 360 roll once. Don’t ever try that though, unless you love the taste of dirt.” Derrick paused seeing Kat jogging up to them, “Hey man, here comes your woman!”

  Joe turned to see Kat running up to him. Looking back at Derrick he said, “Naw she ain’t my woman.”

  Derrick’s eyes flew open wide, “Wow she’s fair game?”

  “Yeah, if she doesn’t smack you in the head with her calculator first.”

  “Ain’t the first time I’d been smacked, even punched out by Belinda Gaines. Hell, she’s tougher than her old man, and he’s a Gunnery Sergeant. Lives right over there with the rock-lined skirting around their trailer.”

  “You boys done yammering? Asked Kat while catching her breath from the run there.

  “Whaa…?” asked Derrick.

  Kat pointed in the direction of the picnic pavilion. “Me and Mamma Dempsey made homemade spaghetti, so if you expect to get some you guys better hurry.”

  “Gee Kat,” said Joe, “How much you and Momma Dempsey make?