by Chris Goff
She was relieved he wasn’t going to make an international case of it and pull the IIC into the mix. Of course, there was no telling what the sergeant might do.
Climbing the embankment to the parking lot, she waited beside the ambulance while the soldiers unloaded McClasky’s body. Melnyk broke the seal on the body bag and extracted the manila envelope, giving it to her along with a pen. Once the papers were secured and the body bag restowed, Jordan handed him back his pen.
“What now?” she asked.
“We take a ride in my kozlik.” He gestured to an old UAZ-469—an older model, Soviet-style, light utility vehicle affectionately referred to as a “goat.” “Courtesy of our former government.”
Jordan hesitated. “Mind if I grab a few things out of my car?”
“It depends. Are you retrieving your luggage or a weapon?”
“Both.” Her 9-mil and duty belt were locked in the glove box, and her bag was in the trunk. “I’d rather not leave them in someone else’s possession. Is that a problem?” She waited for his reaction.
Melnyk shook his head and flashed a thin smile. “But make it quick.”
“I’ll need my keys.”
“Sergeant Hycha, go with her.”
The walk to her car was done in silence. Hycha mumbled under his breath, but there was no direct communication. Jordan was okay with that. Retrieving her duty belt and 9-mil from the glovebox, she picked up her go-bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“Any idea how far it is to the police station?” she asked, hoping he’d understand her Russian.
“104 kilometers.”
She ran the calculations in her head. Well over an hour’s drive.
“Any chance of finding a toilet before we leave?” She figured she had nothing to lose by asking. She’d already earned herself a military escort.
Hycha pointed to the ditch.
“One with some privacy?”
Hycha pointed to a lone oak several yards down the road.
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” Jordan muttered, striking out for the tree. She swept her flashlight from side to side as she walked, avoiding the ruts and washboard and staring out at the fields on either side of the gravel road. On one side was total devastation. The land burned, scarred and littered with bodies. On the other side, the fields remained unscathed, covered with sunflowers waiting to greet the day.
It brought to mind other disaster stories—a fire roaring through a subdivision taking out some of the houses yet sparing others, or a tornado hopscotching through a neighborhood. Insurance agents dubbed them “natural disasters” or “acts of God,” which begged the question, if there was a God, how did he choose who lived and who died? Why destroy some lives and leave others to continue on? With her flashlight beam lapping at the charred edges of the wreckage, Jordan found it hard to believe there was a master plan in all this.
Stepping off into the ditch to climb the small embankment, she could see the ambulance, the captain’s UAZ, and Hycha leaning against the trunk of her rental, talking on the phone and watching her.
Once she ducked behind the tree, Jordan called Lory again. This time she told him about the envelope.
“Not much we can do now. I’ll get the repatriation paperwork started. You stick with the bodies.” He waited a beat, then added, “Nice try.”
“It failed.”
“No harm, no foul. We’ll sort it all out tomorrow.” He clicked off, and Jordan tucked her phone back into her jacket pocket, her hand brushing against metal.
The fragment. She needed to protect it somehow. Pulling a small plastic baggie out of her go-bag, she put the fragment inside, marked the outside of the sleeve, and tucked it into her toiletries pouch.
“What’s taking so long?” Captain Melnyk yelled. “Let’s go.”
“Almost finished,” Jordan shouted. Then dropping her pants, she squatted and peed.
Chapter 4
Lying prone on his sleep sack, fully dressed with his boots on, Kozachenko listened to an owl hooting in the distance. Animals rustled the underbrush. The murmur of the men talking around the campfire lulled him toward sleep.
He startled when his phone rang. It was Stas calling from Hoholeve. Kozachenko sat up. “Da.”
“I have bad news. An envelope was found, but I could not get my hands on it.” Stas relayed what had happened. “It will now go with the bodies by ambulance to the nearest police morgue, the one in Reshetylivka.”
“When?”
“As soon as the DSS agent is finished relieving herself.”
“Can you find a way to destroy it?”
“Nyet. There are too many soldiers around.”
Kozachenko jumped to his feet, sprinted for the truck, and pulled a map out of the glove compartment. “What is the route the ambulance will take?”
“They’ll drive through Myrhorod and south from there.”
“And the DSS agent?” Kozachenko asked.
“The captain is escorting her to the morgue. Once the American embassy file the correct paperwork, the bodies and documents will be transferred to her. I’ve been ordered to follow behind them with her car.”
“Did you find out who she is?” Not that it really mattered, but Kozachenko had a feeling about her.
“According to the rental agreement in the glovebox, her name is Raisa Jordan.”
Apprehension stirred in Kozachenko’s gut. He’d been right to worry.
“That’s the name of the agent Ilya ran up against in Israel six months ago,” he said. “Not only did she thwart his plans, but they pinned the bitch with a medal for her efforts. What the fuck is she doing here?”
“Are you sure it’s the same person?”
Kozachenko found the man’s ineptitude hard to stomach. At some point, Stas needed to step up and do something more than deliver bad news. “I doubt there are two DSS agents with her same name. The woman is dangerous. Don’t underestimate her. Find out everything you can about her. If she knows what Zhen told McClasky, she’s a liability.”
“Do you want me to eliminate the problem?”
Kozachenko scoffed. “Are you telling me you can dispense with a U.S. government agent when you can’t lay your hands on a simple envelope?”
Silence.
“It’s as I thought.” An Old Russian saying popped into Kozachenko’s head: God save us from our friends; from our enemies, we shall save ourselves. “Not too worry, Stas. If the DSS agent proves herself an enemy, we will dispose of her. At the moment, we need to focus on stopping the transfer. Call me the minute the ambulance leaves.”
They discussed the details of his plan, then Kozachenko pocketed his phone and rousted the brigade. The convoy consisted of ten men, two GAZ Tigr armored fighting vehicles, and a URAL-5323 with the mounted gun. While the men stowed the last of their gear, Kozachenko loaded two RPG-7s and grenades into the lead Tigr. Once that was done, he gathered them around the hood of the truck.
“Here’s the situation.” He filled them in on the details and then pointed to the map. “Our new mission is to take out the ambulance before it reaches the main highway. According to Stas, they will be driving this route.” He traced his finger along the map. “We are going to intercept them seven kilometers short of Podil.”
Barkov frowned. “Just how are we going to do this?”
“We have the same ground to cover as the ambulance. If we leave now, we’ll have a head start. I’ll take three men with me.” Kozachenko pointed at Barkov. “You’ll take one man and drive the truck. The remaining four men will bring up the rear. The truck and the tail vehicle will break off here at Shyshaky—”
“And go where?”
“Here.” Kozachenko tapped a forested area on the map. “It’s about thirty-nine kilometers west of here. There’s a small road that crosses the Psel River. Once on the other side, I want you to pull off and disappear into the woods.”
“That almost puts us in Hoholeve.”
“What better place, Anatoliy?�
� Couldn’t his second-in-command see the irony? “Once we take out the ambulance, they will be looking everywhere for us. They will throw up roadblocks, expecting us to flee. But they’ll never suspect the enemy camps in their own backyard.”
“It’s too risky,” Anatoliy said, shaking his head. Kozachenko’s anger piqued. This was the second time Barkov had challenged him. Maybe it wasn’t a perfect plan, but once they struck, there would be too many people looking for them to stay where they were or to push farther west, and a retreat was out of the question. Sychats’kyi Forest seemed like the safest place to be, and Kozachenko needed the entire brigade to be on board. He would not tolerate split loyalties.
“This is not a discussion, Anatoliy. The clock is ticking.” Kozachenko waited to see what his second would do. Barkov hesitated momentarily and then assented with a slight dip of his head. “What will you do?”
“My men and I will intercept and neutralize the transport. Once we’re clear, we’ll double back and join up with the rest of you.” Kozachenko looked around. “Now who wants to fight?”
All the men were eager, but in the end he selected the three who would go: Dudyk, Yolkin, and Vitaly. Dudyk was Ukrainian, and Yolkin spoke the language. If they were stopped for some reason, it would make it easier to talk their way out of trouble. He selected Vitaly because he was their best man on a rocket launcher.
No one argued with his logic. It took ten more minutes for the brigade to get on the road. Then at the intersection of H12 and Lenin Street, Kozachenko halted the convoy. From this vantage point, the two roadways stretched in four directions, shimmering like black silk ribbons in the wan moonlight. While the faint light made it easier for them to see, it also increased the chances of someone tracking their movement. But what choice did they have?
Straight ahead of them lay the small settlement of Dykanka, best known from stories of Ukrainian folklore written by the famous Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Kozachenko had read his book about the area in secondary school. Creeping forward, he noted that there was less farmland now and more village. Thankfully, all the windows were dark, and there were no streetlamps or outside lights. The only sounds came from the occasional bark of a dog and the rumble of the convoy engines accompanied by a faint buzz from the power lines that snaked overhead.
Kozachenko kept his guard up as they rolled into the heart of Dykanka, but it appeared most of the residents were sleeping. He could only hope they’d drunk enough vodka to stay asleep while the brigade passed. They needed to get through the village without being detected.
The roads grew worse as they neared the center square. With the collapse of the Ukrainian economy had come the collapse of the infrastructure. Roadways and buildings crumbled. The GAZ’s tires chattered against the cracked asphalt, and Kozachenko was forced to swerve around deep potholes pitting the road. Upon reaching the western outskirts, the sky darkened, and it started to drizzle.
Barkov grumbled over the radio. “This is all we need.”
“Relax, Anatoliy. The clouds are a good thing. They block the spy satellites that the Ukrainians and Americans will eventually try to use to track us.” Kozachenko reached out and flipped on the windshield wipers. “Be thankful for the small things working in our favor.”
They were twelve kilometers beyond town when Stas called from Hoholeve. “The transport is leaving now.”
“Good,” Kozachenko said. “We’ll be in position.” Then he handed the phone to Yolkin. “Remove the SIM card, make sure the tracking device is disabled, and toss the phone.”
He knew Stas was doing the same. Eventually someone was going to put two and two together, and there must be no way to make a connection between him and the convoy.
It took the convoy thirty minutes to reach the outskirts of Shyshaky. The town was double the size of Dykanka, and it also lay in darkness and quiet. On the far side of town, they parted company—Barkov and his men turning right onto Partyzanska Street and heading for the bridge that crossed the Psel River, Kozachenko and his men turning left and heading south. Thirty minutes later, Kozachenko reached the intersection of T1719, the road the military transport was traveling. Turning east, he drove approximately nine hundred meters before pulling off onto a small gravel road.
“Dudyk and Vitaly, get out here.” Kozachenko tossed Dudyk a handheld radio while Vitaly unloaded one of the rocket launchers. “There are three vehicles coming: the ambulance, a UAZ escort, and a rental car driven by our man, Stas. He has instructions to hang back, but in case he can’t, don’t shoot him. Use the radio to signal when you see the ambulance, then punch out the UAZ behind it.”
“And you?” Dudyk asked.
“Yolkin and I will take care of the ambulance. Once our mission is complete, either Stas will pick you up or Yolkin and I will double back.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Nothing will.”
“But if something does?” Dudyk said.
Kozachenko stared at the soldier. Was Barkov’s pessimism rubbing off on him? “Then there’s a wildlife refuge eight kilometers due west of here. Find the main entrance and stay out of sight. We’ll come for you as soon as it’s safe.”
“And if we’re spotted?”
“You speak the language, Dudyk. Use it.”
Chapter 5
The UAZ bounced, and Jordan anchored herself with one hand on the seat and the other on the car’s doorframe. Goats weren’t known for their great suspension, but the ride had gotten rougher since leaving Bairak.
“Is it my imagination or is the road getting worse?” The taillights of the ambulance seemed to falter as it chattered down the stretch of highway ahead of them.
“It’s worse. Between the rain and the constant abuse of heavy farming equipment, it’s to be expected. Brace yourself.” Melnyk swerved the UAZ to avoid another large pothole, the headlights illuminating a strip of pockmarked asphalt ahead.
Jordan tightened her seat belt. “Why doesn’t the province repair it?”
“With what money?” The captain sounded bitter. “All Ukraine is crumbling. Most of the infrastructure is outdated or wearing out, while the taxes collected from the people for repairs disappear into the pockets of unscrupulous contractors or corrupt officials. Many of us had hoped to see changes after Yanukovych was ousted. Instead, we’ve had to deal with the invasion of Russia, increased expenses, and the loss of even more resources.”
A low whistle began to overshadow his voice. Jordan recognized the sound, and the grip of fear held her paralyzed in her seat. She braced herself at the last moment.
A large explosion rocked the UAZ, slamming Jordan’s shoulder against the window as her heart hit her throat. Instinctively she drew her shoulders around her ears and held on as the vehicle tilted onto two wheels before slamming back to the ground.
Melnyk slammed on the brakes. “What the fuck was that?”
An RPG? She shook off her daze and looked for the source of the explosion. In the passenger-side mirror, she saw a path of burning debris on the asphalt. Several hundred meters beyond that, two men dressed in camouflage stood at the edge of the road, reloading a man-based rocket launcher.
“Keep moving! We have incoming.” Jordan estimated she and the captain had about thirty seconds to get out of range.
It took a beat or two for Melnyk to respond, but then he shifted gears and stomped on the accelerator. The UAZ shot forward, and he reached for the radio mic. “Hycha, come in.”
Static.
He twisted the radio dial. “Hycha, command, we are under attack. I repeat, we are taking fire.”
The words had barely escaped his mouth when a second explosion rocked the night. This time it was in front of them. Jordan whipped her head around in time to see the ambulance take a direct hit. Fire blazed from its undercarriage, while smoke and steam rose from the engine block. Again, Melnyk stepped on the brakes, while Jordan braced herself against the dashboard. The UAZ skidded to a stop.
She stared in disbelief as
fire lapped up the sides of the transport vehicle and flirted with the windows. Then the realization that there were men inside set her in motion. Unclipping her seat belt, she reached for the door handle.
“Wait!” Melnyk’s arm shot out, pinning her to the seat.
“Your men could still be alive.”
“It’s too late.” He jerked his chin up as a large armored fighting vehicle emerged through the settling dust and pulled up near the ambulance. Two men wearing military camouflage jumped out, weapons drawn. At the front of the ambulance, they stopped, raised their rifles, and opened fire.
Jordan flinched as the first round punched through the glass, erasing any hope of the men’s survival.
When the gunmen turned in their direction, Melnyk jammed the UAZ in reverse.
“Hold up!” Jordan said.
The men stood near the rear doors of the ambulance. Ignoring the growing fire, one of them yanked open the back doors and climbed inside.
Jordan scooted forward on the seat. What the hell were they up to?
A shot ricocheted off the UAZ’s hood, forcing Jordon to duck. The soldier who had remained outside was advancing, strafing the front grill. Melnyk goosed the accelerator, and the goat bucked. Moving backward at high speed, he cranked the wheel. The goat swung around and then stalled crosswise in the road.
Jordan hit the floorboards as gunfire pounded the reinforced passenger-side door, shattering the window above her head. Sharp bits of glass rained down on her back and into her hair. More ammo rounds ripped through the thin metal of the detachable, hard-topped roof overhead and blew out the back window.
“Get us out of here!” she yelled.
“I’m trying.” Hunkered behind the wheel, Melnyk tried turning the key. “Come on, come on!”
The gunfire ceased.
Jordan listened to the grinding of the starter and cautiously raised her head. The man in the ambulance exited holding something in his hand.
