by Paul Cude
* * *
He listened to the guards surrounding his truck bark out orders in a language he didn't understand. Despite not being able to speak Russian, he knew from his many trips here that everyone was agitated. All the guards were alert, with most having at least one hand on the machine guns that they wore over their shoulders. None were smoking.
'That,' he thought, 'is a tell-tale sign that the tension is higher than normal.’
Once again, ice started to form on the inside of the windscreen. Reaching over, he turned the fan up to its most powerful setting, hoping against hope to keep the ice at bay. This was the part of the job he hated most... the waiting! In this most foreign of places, it wasn't just cold, it was absolutely FREEZING! When you mention Siberia to anyone, they immediately think of cold, snow, ice. But until you've actually been there you can't imagine how cold, desolate and bleak it really is. In some ways it's almost like another planet.
A quick glimpse in the side mirrors showed the forklift trucks, with their orange flashing lights, loading the cargo carefully into the back of his lorry. Soon, he told himself, soon he would be able to go. At least he would be away from those damn guards. No matter how many times he'd been here, they always gave him the creeps. They all regarded him with some degree of suspicion, even though he was almost a regular, having done this dozens of times. He, on the other hand, thought they all looked the same, steely jawed, lean with just a hint of stubble around their faces, all seemingly smokers.
A sharp knock on the window jolted him out of his reverie. A guard waved a clipboard at him, with some documents on it. Instinctively he depressed the button to operate the electric window on the cab's door, but of course, it did nothing.
'Damn cold!' he thought.
Pulling up the hood on his jacket, he opened the door and grabbed the clipboard from the guard. The cold assaulted the inside of the cab, forcing all the warm air out after only a few seconds, the guard taking a perverse pleasure at this. He quickly checked and signed the documents, waiting for the guard to give him his copy. Reluctantly the guard did so. Quickly shutting the cab door, all the time watching the ice re-form on the inside of the windscreen, finally he heard the double doors of the container being slammed shut. From the side mirrors, he could see the forklift trucks retreat back into the warehouse, their jobs done. Once again the guard slammed his gloved fist onto the window, but this time indicated with a wave that he should get going. Not needing to be told twice, he engaged first gear and began crawling very slowly forward in the fresh snow. About halfway to the main gate of the facility, just when the heater had once again started to win the battle with the ice on the inside of the windscreen, his escorts appeared on either side of the snow laden track he found himself on. Nothing unusual there, apart from the fact that on previous trips there had only ever been one or two top of the line Range Rovers accompanying him. This time there were four, each full to the sunroof with guards.
'Wow,' he thought. 'Something must be going on.'
Holding the jinking steering wheel with one hand, he flicked on the interior light and pulled out his copy of the documents, giving it closer inspection. It took him a while to find what he was looking for. Once again he was transporting 'laminium', whatever that was. The only difference he could find this time was the fact that there appeared to be more than four times the amount of any of his previous trips.
'Come to think of it,' he mused, 'they were a long time loading up,' and the normally cooperative truck he was driving did seem a little more sluggish and unresponsive.
By now, the first Range Rover had reached the security barrier at the main entrance, and the driver showing his paperwork to the guards was waved through quite quickly, by Russian standards that is (about five minutes). He headed out, the snarl of the diesel engine just making itself heard over the howling wind, with two Range Rovers in front and two behind. As with the previous trips, the Range Rovers would shadow him from Magadan (his current location) through Siberia, beyond Moscow, leaving only at the Russian border with Belarus. From there another security contingent would accompany him through Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic and on to Germany and France before the final leg to England, and then back to the processing plant at Salisbridge. All in all, the journey should take about three weeks, depending mainly on what sort of weather he encountered across Siberia.
'Oh well,' he thought, as snow started to pepper his windscreen, 'it may not be the Caribbean, but with the sort of money that Cropptech are paying me, at least I'll be able to afford to retire there.' The convoy disappeared into the snowy wilderness, carrying their rare and valuable cargo towards its final destination.
