Arctic Sunrise

by Robert G. White

  The gunshot wound in his shoulder is more serious than he first believed it to be and it's bleeding again, soon he'll have to stop and tend to it. Despite having the bullet removed and the wound patched up by a doctor in Moscow, the strain from driving continuously for such a long time opened it up again. A mere flesh wound that is not life threatening, only a bothersome to him and a soon to be new scar.

  Dmitri stops at a gas station, takes a bag out of the trunk, for a second revealing to anyone curious enough to gaze, two unconscious men inside, gagged and tied up. He locks the car, goes into the restroom, opens the last stall door and sits on the toilet, opens the bag, takes out duct tape and bandages and patches his wound in a very unskilled and primitive way. The hole that the bullet has made into his shoulder has damaged one of his star tattoos and this infuriates Dmitri more than the pain of getting shot at close range with a Makarov pistol. The stars on his shoulders are old, almost eight years old, when he became a vor, part of the vory v zakone, the thief's world, the red mafia, Russian mob. Even though he's made it, still feels like somehow he's not there yet.

  Dmitri is a brutal, intelligent man, he has had a cruel upbringing. Life in a Moscow orphanage was his first memory, the second one was strong hairy arms hugging him tightly from behind at night in his bed while something hard poked at his back, and then a moan, a pet on the head, a kiss from a rugged bearded face on his cheek. He was five years old, he was too young to understand what was happening to him and just how wrong it was. How could he have known when the same thing was happening to almost every child in that place? Over time anything that happened at night in that hellhole became normal and usual...rapes after rapes, child prostitution, kids being sold for organs, drugs being traded and used and many more other wicked things.

  At age ten, one night Dmitri waited in his bed awake until the break of morning when the three floors house became silent. He got out of his bed and started five separate fires in the building and then bared the main and only door from the outside. The bars on the windows that were there to keep the children from escaping or killing themselves made it impossible for anyone to get out. Dmitri walked away, disappearing into the thick, cold morning fog before anyone even noticed the fire spreading quickly. Every man, woman and child either burned alive or died because of the smoke. Only he survived but it took something from him as well. The child that left behind this house of debauchery was something else.

  Dmitri had done such an awful and gruesome thing to spare all the children inside and all those who would arrive there in the future. He hadn't burnt the building down to punish the pimps, pedophiles, dealers and rapists that called themselves employees. His anger towards them was nothing compared to the mercy he felt towards the hundreds and thousands of children that had passed through there in all the years...so many hearts darkened there. He helped in the only was he was able to, by killing them, by destroying that dark, dreadful place. That morning Dmitri hid away on a train, not knowing its destination. He arrived in Saint Petersburg with nothing and remained there for three years, surviving only by stealing and most of the time by eating fat, disgusting, disease infected rats from the sewers, the place he slept in. And then he was given a chance, a choice but not a free one...never in his life had something been free or easy. Every single day of his life he had fought relentlessly.

  Dmitri stands up and flushes, leaves the stall to wash his bloody hands in one of the sinks.

  ''I was beginning to think you had died in there.'' a voice in the restroom, faint and sarcastic. Dmitri doesn't even hear the man.

  ''You hear me talking boy?'' this time Dmitri hears it and looks to his right. He sees a man washing his hands two sinks away. Middle aged, thick beard, anger and alcohol dominating his eyes. The man keeps rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt and staring at Dmitri intensely.

  ''Leave me alone.'' Dmitri mutters still focused on the blood on his hands, under his rings. It's so hard to wash off.

  The man slowly approaches Dmitri with a faint disgust that quickly changes to sheer terror once he sees from close up Dmitri's dead eyes, the blood on his hands and the markings ''OMYT'' and ''MNP'' on the back of his right palm. Most people in Russia know what those signs mean. Hands of a killer, of a soulless creature. The tools of the Devil.

  Dmitri slowly turns his sight upwards, towards the mirror in front of him above the sink and whispers ''do you want to die?'' in a serious but not threatening way, almost as if he's just asking a simple but real question...is he asking himself? Is the reflection in the mirror truly him? He's never identified himself by the face staring back at him.

  ''I'm sorry, I didn't know'' the man utters looking down and slowly backing up away from Dmitri, slipping on a small puddle of water and almost falling down. The terror in the man's movements amuse Dmitri.

  '' A fly trying to fight a bear? I don't have time to kill you. You may leave. I'll track you down in a few weeks when I have time and butcher you. Get your affairs in order, the next time you will see me, you'll already be dead. '' Dmitri orders the man without even looking at him. Dmitri's handgun is in his car. That's the only reason the man survives.

  The drunk bursts out of the restroom running as fast as humanly possible and knocking down an old man that was coming out of a stall. Dmitri wipes his hands with a couple of paper towels and leaves the bathroom, on the way out, he reaches his hand towards the old man on the floor to help him get up on his feet. The old man refuses Dmitri's help with a stare of disgust, stands up and spits in Dmitri's face.

  ''Piece of shit mobsters, may your children die of cancer while in your wife's womb and rot her stomach off! Stalin should have killed you all! '' the old man shouts and spits again, a dry white saliva in Dmitri's face.

  Dmitri grabs the man's shirt, almost ripping its collar off and pulls the man close to him, wipes his face and smiling he says ''better to be a man's enemy than to be his bitch.'' Dmitri looks at the old man with pity, he can't believe that some people still think of Stalin as a hero. Ignorance is a chronic, infectious and untreatable disease.

  Dmitri pushes the man back down before he gets a chance to respond and leaves the restroom and on his way back to the car he catches with the corner of his eye a man slapping a woman in the parking lot. One slap, two slaps and Dmitri panics, rushing to the car, knowing that every fiber of his body wants to walk over to the man and beat him to death. He calms down in the car, breathing slowly and keeping his mind occupied. He's always had a problem with men beating on women. Cowards, only cowards can do that, threaten and beat a woman. Men only kill women when it is required, they don't hurt them. Any man that hits a woman is weak. So deliciously weak...

  Hours later Dmitri feels nervous as he approaches his destination, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle, the port city or Murmansk. To him it's what Heaven should be. This place was often the refuge of his youth and the place he met Ana. Dmitri soaks in sorrow for a while and then remembers the words of his mentor ''it is better to have bad memories instead of no memories.'' Just outside the city he goes off the main road onto a dirt one, only a few kilometers and he arrives at giant gates that he has not seen before. The gates open inwards by the times his car reaches them, inside a green courtyard stretching for kilometers and in the distance a villa; a mansion; an estate; a palace; a massive building with giant arches, large windows and pillars as thick as old oaks. ''Heaven on earth so near to Hell'' Dmitri says to himself.

  The architectural wonder, this divine vision is abruptly corrupted by about twelve men guarding the mansion, some with leashed dogs and automatic weapons. One of the guards guides Dmitri to the courtyard parking lot which easily fits twenty cars. Only four cars besides Dmitri's are there, which means he is early, just what he wanted.

  He is greeted by an old man in a wheelchair and alongside him a pale, tall ,blonde boy that is eighteen years old at most. The boy is visibly nervous while the man in the wheelchair is smiling and excited.

  ''Here he comes ahead of schedu
le to pour some life into an old, sick man.'' the man in the wheelchair almost sings as Dmitri approaches, clearly holding back his smile.

  The old man wants to sit up and the boy beside him tries to help him up, the old man slaps his hand away and looks angrily at him. The boy backs up a few steps. Dmitri hugs the old man and kisses his hands. They look upon each other with love, respect and fear.

  ''Dmitri you look great.'' the old man mutters.

  ''Ivan, you're still alive ?'' Dmitri answers while still smiling playfully.

  ''Let's go inside...it's always cold out here or maybe these old bones don't welcome our heritage so much'' Ivan says and sits back down on his wheelchair panting.

  Dmitri nods and pushes the wheelchair inside.

  ''Over there, there we can talk'' the old man says and points to a room at the end of the left hallway. Even though the mansion has immense windows everywhere, the room they enter is very dark, the blinds are shut over two windows and a television is loud on some news channel where a big breasted woman dressed in blue talks really fast and convincing, something about penguins. Exciting shit.

  ''Those gates and that fence were not here the last time I visited. You afraid of wolves, you growing sheep around here?'' Dmitri asks seriously.

  ''Just to show how often you visit me'' Ivan says in a sad tone.

  ''Come on, you know it's not like before, since that time you refused to do the hit for the KGB we've become outcasts, they're sitting on you like a chicken on a nest. We should have just done the deed as ordered and be done with it.'' Dmitri whispers.

  ''I've done many bad things in my life but I won't kill children for anyone. Fuck the KGB, they're worse than politicians, always scheming wicked things.'' Ivan says.

  ''Men; women; children; priests; doctors; horses; bears...what's the difference, it's all meat. The KGB finds a way nevertheless. They kill whoever they want, well they kill whoever they need to kill. People that cause problems like that senator a few months ago, they killed him by adding some top secret substance to the clothes he had at a dry cleaning. Man put on his suit and died in under an hour. Natural causes...natural fucking causes...like cyanide in cigarettes, people drowning in half empty bathtubs or appendicitis surgeries ending in death. But I have no problem with any of that. Every man, woman and child has his time. It's a wolf world out there, more and more every day. '' Dmitri says in a serious tone.

  ''Not everyone is built like you Dmitri and thank God for that.'' Ivan says looking fearfully at Dmitri.

  Dmitri raises his eyebrows and nods his head slowly, agreeing with Ivan. The old man's appearance is so unique, the line of his jaw is so straight and his cheeks are flat and colorless, his green eyes so piercing and overwhelming, his thick grey and white hair that barely touches his shoulders complete his image.

  ''So tell me, why are you here? And don't tell me it's about those damn stupid dogs, howling all hours of the night.'' Ivan asks.

  ''It's not about the huskies, though I would like to see them. And don't call them stupid, they are not stupid. People are stupid, not dogs. On a serious note I am here earlier than expected because it is what you would have wanted...I've been busy lately, not with the whole judge kidnapping fiasco, you know what I mean, you can feel it, don't you? Dmitri says.

  ''How did that end up, anyway?'' Ivan asks, almost avoiding Dmitri's real question.

  ''I had to track down those idiots, finally found the child in a hotel, killed all of them. The judge is on our side for now at least but I do not trust him. I think he has some American blood in him.'' Dmitri answers bluntly.

  ''You don't trust anyone, he's just a quarter American.'' Ivan says.

  ''Yes but I distrust him the most. Americans...undisciplined, disgusting, idiotic creatures. It's a damn shame The Cold War never turned into something. This whole planet would be speaking Russian if it had.'' Dmitri says with passion in his voice.

  ''I don't think so. Most likely, there wouldn't have been a world left.'' Ivan says.

  ''Even better! We couldn't have lost that war. America doesn't understand one simple thing, when you're facing an enemy that is almost your equal in arsenal and manpower, it all comes down to two things, tactics and motivation. Our soviet forces were blessed with both and still are to this day. We fought to defend our dark, cold, worthless lands. A land in which only a strong race can prosper. That is exactly the reason no power on this Earth could ever conquer us. We fight to defend something that has no value to anyone but us and we will fight to the last man, woman and child. Americans fight because they are told to by their weak masters. There's a huge difference between a soldier and an employee, between greed and patriotism.'' Dmitri says.

  ''I never knew you hated Americans with such a passion.'' Ivan says, curious and somewhat surprised.

  ''I pity them. A child nation built with strings and whips on chains and blood that despite everything refuses to grow up. They fight amongst themselves over skin color...what good thing can be said about such a country? Someone should tell those idiots that skin is an organ, hating someone because of the color of their skin is like despising someone because they have bigger kidneys than you do. How the British ever lost the war against them is unconceivable. That was the stupidest page in the entire history.'' Dmitri says.

  ''Now you got a problem with the British?'' Ivan asks.

  ''No, their country has indeed produced about twenty men of true worth in the past five hundred years. That's actually impressive. But that was then. You need to see their capital now. London at night is a gruesome sight. If Winston Churchill or king George the VI were able to see into the future, they would have invited the Germans to invade them. They would have built a fucking bridge from France. London...a once noble bastion of democracy, standing tall and strong against the vegetarian Hitler and his brilliant generals...and now, only sixty years later, London is shit. There is no place I hate more than that blasted city. I hope to see it purged during my lifetime, like Sodom and Gomorrah.'' Dmitri says, spitting on the ground.

  ''It's been many years since I've seen London. Has it changed so much?'' Ivan asks.

  ''The whole city feels like a bad neighborhood of New York.'' Dmitri says.

  ''New York, London...it's all a Jewish world anyway.'' Ivan responds, waving his right palm in the air.

  ''Now who's the racist?'' Dmitri asks, smiling.

  ''I hold no hate for the Jews. They deserve everything they got. So many nations, across thousands of years have hated the Jews, some even tried to murder them all and yet still the Jews, a nation considered weak and inferior has persevered and thrived. I have some sympathy towards them as they remind me of our people. Also, they are motivated by the same thing we have been, not wealth or God or family or whatnot but by the simple instinct of survival. They even turned their tragedies into something good. Every nation mourned with them at the end of the Second World War.'' Ivan says.

  ''Holocaust, that is what they call it. Six million dead. But does anyone outside of Russia know how many of our people died in the years before, during and after the war? We couldn't even keep track...but it was a shitload more than six million.'' Dmitri says.

  ''Russians have been dying for centuries and we die in silence. It is not pride, it's the way we are...conquerors and warriors. It is not a tragedy when men die with swords in their hands and on their feet. No matter how many die. The fundamental difference between the Jewish struggle and our struggle is that Russians hate Russians more than anything. We hate and kill ourselves while Jews are hated by others and united amongst themselves. Also the Chinese have suffered more at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War, they lost more people than any other country.'' Ivan says.

  ''Enough with the Jews already, they've survived all their hardships. They are free now and they got this planet locked up tight. There will never be men like Hitler again. They won. I can't feel sorry for winners.'' Dmitri says.

  ''The hate towards Jews is a deep rooted one. It might not be ove
r...only time will tell but let us move from such far away abstract topics. Tell me more of London, I miss that place.'' Ivan says.

  ''I don't know where to start. It's the Babylon from the Bible, only a thousand times worse. The social and cultural decline is visible and tangible in London as some form of decay. The mixture between all those races is vomit inducing and foul. What remains of the once greatest city of Europe is the buildings. If London is a preview of what this world is heading to...then I'm glad I'll be dead by that time. These new generations are something out of a nightmare.'' Dmitri says.

  ''Surely there are some still...'' Ivan says.

  ''Not enough. Most are beyond words, I wouldn't waste a bullet on any of them. You know how I am, always watching, listening...I'm a man of senses. I see how they dress, move, how they think and what they say and do. This world needs another war badly. And soon. It's like everything bad from America swam to Europe in only sixty years. You should see it. It's a fucking Wild West, only with many more drugs, more senseless violence, more venereal diseases but less anarchy for now. My conclusion is that their leaders either do not care or simply do not know how to stop it.'' Dmitri says.

  ''How would you stop it?'' Ivan asks.

  ''That's a hard question'' Dmitri answers swiftly.

  ''Off the top of your head'' Ivan insists.

  ''Blood, it's the only way. Recruit students from the graduating year of two police academies. Handpicked individuals. Create covert ops death squads and crack down on street crime through summary execution. That wouldn't do much but it would be a good starting step.'' Dmitri says.

  ''Something less bloody?'' Ivan asks.

  ''There is no other way. Cancer must be cut out not bandaged. Two twenty year olds tried to rob me in a elevator with a knife last time I was in London.'' Dmitri says.

  ''Did you kill them?'' Ivan chuckles at the idea of someone trying to rob Dmitri.