by Rik Stone
Jez popped a piece of fish into his mouth and brushed his hands together to highlight that they were out of fresh food. “Let’s get going. If we get back early then with a bit of luck I could be on a plane to Turkey before tomorrow’s out.”
They packed up and moved out, soon to be climbing the last upward slope. “Another five minutes and we’ll be looking over the ridge and down onto the plain, and the Gulag. But don’t get too excited; it’s a steep descent on the other side of the mountain and it will take time,” Pavel said.
But excitement is exactly what Jez did feel; he would soon be with Anna again. They’d met at basic training when he was fifteen years old. She’d been sixteen and quick to point out what a difference in maturity a year could make. Smiling into his chin bar, exhilaration picked up his step. If he could get back early, there would be no reason he couldn’t immediately continue the onward journey, go with Anna, or catch up if she had already left. But then his insides jarred as Pavel pulled his arm and yelled, “Face down!”
Jez had heard nothing, but knew he should follow the order without question. He hurled himself forward, submerged into a soft snow bank. The snowsuits were white, the canvas rifle sleeves were white and the backpacks were white. Their hoods were up and the snow was deep. The sky had darkened such that even if anyone was looking at them from close up, they would be invisible.
Several seconds went by and Jez slowly lifted his head to catch a breath; the earlier stillness had split to the whum-whum whumping of distant helicopters chopping into the atmosphere.
“Answer seriously, Pavel, are we on maneuvers or have we got a problem here? I mean, surely this is the normal way for anyone to travel to and from the Gulag.”
“Listen, there’re at least three choppers coming up from the south. I was amongst the first people to arrive at the camp and I’ve never known more than one aircraft at any one time, and none have approached from that direction.”
The whumming grew ever closer and Pavel had been right. Turning his head slightly to one side to get a better view without revealing the position, Jez saw six helicopter gunships on a heading in a direct line with the ridge. He went back to staring at the snow beneath him. “Are they after us?” he asked. “You’re sure this isn’t another part of the training?”
“I wish it was. No, definitely not. As far as I’m aware, we don’t have Mil Mi-twenty-four gunships at our disposal. I haven’t a clue what’s going on. But if they are the enemy, how did they find the camp?”
The choppers passed low overhead and a thin top layer of powdered snow blew up a storm around them. The machines came in so low that Jez could see the canons, loaded, and if he wasn’t mistaken, with S-8 rockets. The big ones. Lifting his head at the same time as Pavel, he watched as the craft disappeared over the ridge.
“Come on!” Pavel said. “I don’t see how we can help, but those at the camp are in trouble.”
The sky appeared clear but Jez couldn’t see a single star to stud the twilight above. The noise from a firefight suddenly kicked up and fear took a grip of his heart. Anna! Discarding the backpack, Jez clambered, pulled at the snow with his hands to help his progress but moved slowly because the snowshoes got in the way. At the summit, he rose to his feet and saw a thirty-meter flat cap in front of him: the ridge. The sun had long since dropped from sight on the distant plain and should’ve left a midnight blue sky in its wake, but the land was undimmed and brightness dazzled his eyes. Rockets flared from gun tubes and the whole complex had erupted into a death-dealing inferno. One of the gunships was loaded with napalm bombs. They fizzed from the tubes, hit the ground, and a series of fireballs enveloped the site.
From what Jez could see, minimal fire was returned.
His allies, and his beautiful Anna, had been caught flat-footed. The assault ended and the choppers milled around what could best be described as total devastation. Jez focused his binoculars on the ship carrying the napalm bombs and watched as it made a few victory bows to its fellow assailants, tilting to about forty-five degrees before returning to the horizontal.
The helicopter was still on a downward bow when a ground missile fired from out of the inferno. The shell faltered, wavered through the air like a quasi-dud firework, and then struck the napalm ship under the rotor from where the engine exhausts exited. In a flash, the craft went into convulsion, hurtled downward, and smashed into the ground, disappearing in a ball of flames with combusted juices spewing away indiscriminately. But the minor victory was short lived. The remaining crafts homed in on where the rocket launcher had fired and hit it with everything left at their disposal. Somehow, a figure on the ground survived long enough to emerge from a foxhole at the edge of the stockade. The outline of a pathetic human form stumbled and zigzagged through the flames.
Jez felt a sourness blossom in his chest that spread deeply into his groin. Smoke billowed from the soldier’s clothing. He stood no chance. And no quarter was given. Several lines of smoking tracer bullets ripped into the snow until hitting the runner and tearing his body apart. No possibility of life remained. Jez wiped at tears, already freezing to his cheeks. He turned away. For the second time in his life he had lost Anna. Pavel was also suffering. His shoulders had slumped, his head dropped, and he wept.
Jez forced himself to look beyond personal pain. From previous experience he knew he had to get moving, forget about sorrow, survive. He pulled at Pavel’s shoulder. “Come, my friend, we’ll return tomorrow and see what can be done, but don’t hold out hope for survivors.” He took one last look at the devastation before leaving. The choppers landed and six to eight troopers jumped from each. They held sub-machine guns poised and ready as they roamed the parts of the site that had already cooled. He recognized the almost indistinguishable snowsuits and his heart sunk further: the men were part of a Spetsnaz unit. His old regiment.
Chapter 3
Jez gathered his belongings on the way down the slope as the two men raced back to where the choppers had first passed overhead. It would take the enemy as much as ten or twelve hours to get to where they were from the Gulag, so they would be safe for the meantime. They stopped and dug out a cave from the soft snow, snuggled in, and Pavel said, “After the sweeping success the raiders had down there, I’d be surprised if they were to spread the search for survivors. They should be gone by morning.”
That was it. Conversation died and evening passed silently with Jez lamenting the possible loss of Anna. But then he chided himself. She’ll be in Turkey, he told himself. The thought of her being at the camp on his return had only ever been a vain hope. It was the loss of his other comrades he should have been mourning, not wallowing in self-sympathy about someone who got out.
The long night was miserable, but for the living, morning always makes its inevitable appearance, and Jez went quietly about his dressing routine.
“They’ll be gone,” Pavel said when they were ready to leave, “but we approach commando style, just in case.”
He didn’t need to tell Jez that, he wasn’t that rusty, but if it took Pavel’s mind off what had happened … what difference?
“We should take everything with us,” he continued. “We need a plan and it will be easier to start the journey to … wherever, straight from the Gulag.”
Jez was puzzled. “You don’t actually believe there could be survivors, do you?”
“No, they were caught unawares and paid the price. But there are the fallout shelters. Even the Spetsnaz unit would have trouble finding them. So, who knows?”
“Underground rooms?”
Pavel looked at him in surprise. “You didn’t know? Yes, so even if no one made it, we can salvage food and weaponry.”
Jez nodded. “Let’s go.”
In full kit, the part of the mountainside they’d virtually ran up yesterday seemed steeper and they found themselves slipping back on drifts and starting small avalanches. At the top, they removed their snowshoes and crossed the ridge, then dropped to their bellies and elbowed their way o
ver the last few meters. Jez was surprised to see the enemy below hadn’t yet left – or at least there was a new set of people down there. “There’s been a change of personnel,” he said.
The rocket ships had gone but in their place was a helicopter troop-carrier, four eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers (BTR-60s), two Gaz-69 four-wheel drives (jeep class), and a snow plough they’d used to forge their way through the winter terrain.
“To have arrived so soon, the ground vehicles must have begun the journey long before the strike on the compound had taken place,” Pavel said.
A couple of civilians had set up tripods and a woman wearing a fur hat, but otherwise inadequately dressed for the conditions, was thrusting a microphone forward, braving the cold to look good while interviewing a four-star general. The two with the tripods were cameramen. One wore a jacket with a Pravda newspaper emblem; he took photographs. The other filmed the woman and the general. Soviet national television.
“This doesn’t make sense. They’re acting as if the aggression against the camp warrants merit,” Jez said.
Pavel shook his head negatively. “Whatever the reason for the attack, the general, Irishka, is taking a bow for its demolition.”
“You know him?” Jez asked.
He shrugged. “That his name is Irishka is all I know.”
Jez watched Irishka lift an open-palmed hand and gesture towards an approaching soldier. The reporter halted the interview and both cameras panned round to the direction he had indicated.
Pavel lowered his binoculars. “I don’t believe it! The fucking bitch!”
“What? Who is she?”
The soldier was a lieutenant. As she marched purposefully towards Irishka and the media people, a wisp of dark hair fell from under her ushanka rabbit skin hat. She wore a heavy, blue-grey trench coat that hung low, covering most of her black leather boots. She stopped on reaching Irishka and brought a patent leather glove to her temple in salutation. The general returned the salute, put her at ease and said something. A cheesy grin enveloped her features. When the crinkles ironed out, Jez had to admit, she had the face of an angel.
“Her name is Sasha Rolaninski. I was told General Petrichova had brought her out to the Gulag a day or so before you left on maneuvers. As far as I know, she was supposed to return to Moscow with him … I suppose we’ve been lucky; the general hadn’t selected her personally so she hadn’t been fully vetted and wasn’t introduced around the camp. She wouldn’t be aware of us being in the field.”
Jez felt his throat cramp and, naively, he couldn’t imagine how someone with such angelic features could be so treacherous … until he thought of Anna. He dismissed the thinking. Anna had never been a traitor to her own. Anger raised in him. Less than eight hundred meters from where he lay, he knew he could take her out with a single shot. And he ached to do it! But his mind’s eye pictured General Petrichova saying, “Look what you’ve done. You’ve got yourself and Pavel killed. How are you going to put things right now?” He hadn’t cleared the impressions from his mind when Pavel removed his shoulder strap and began unzipping the canvas sleeve holding his rifle.
“What’re you doing?” Jez asked, a spasm of panic engulfing his body. “If we hit them, we’ll be killed and the unit will be finished. We must determine how this has come about. There’ll be another time to take care of her.”
“Fuck another time. I know you outrank me, Jez, but I will happily die knowing that bitch has died alongside me.”
Jez had no idea he’d outranked Pavel, but it wasn’t important right now; there would be no reasoning with him. Sighing, Jez brought his Dragunov in front of him and unzipped the bag. “Well at least let’s try and be organized. We both hit the woman and then we take out the pilots. Irishka is an unknown, so we leave him unharmed. Okay?”
“Sounds right,” he answered, already laying his face against the cheek pad on the stock of his rifle and adjusting the sights. “I’m set. I’ll wait for you to shoot and then we fire at will.”
Fidgeting for position, at last Jez scoped Rolaninski through the sights. At around seven fifty meters, he had to be steady. He was out of practice and it had to be a good shot. Pavel was already focused for the attack so Jez let the crosswire wander until it centered on Rolaninski’s face. He squeezed off a shot. The crack of his rifle had barely resounded when Pavel let go a shot of his own. For a moment, he kept the scope on Rolaninski, watched as his strike split the middle of her right eyebrow. Her head jerked back and the ushanka went with it. But already Pavel’s bullet had whacked high into her center forehead. Her dark hair crested and a red bloom flowered over it. The impact lifted her from her feet and she hit the ground with arms and legs spread, as if she were about to make a snow angel. Everything went freeze-frame. Those in Jez’s field of vision began moving in slow motion. He was back in the zone.
“My pilot’s on the right,” Pavel said, and pulled the trigger before waiting for an answer. The airman he shot was yet to react, but Jez’s target had already turned and was clambering into the helicopter. Jez fired, hitting the pilot in the lower spine.
Suddenly, the scene regained speed. People scurried about, unsure of where the attack was coming from.
“Aim at the general’s bodyguards to slow the regrouping,” Jez told Pavel.
A few shots were fired, but it was only moments before the enemy were firing back, bullets hissing and sizzling nearby.
“Enough!” he said. “They’ve homed in on our positions and they too have long-distance rifles. Let’s go!”
They raced across the ridge, slipped into their snowshoes, bagged the rifles on the move, and then gracefully danced down the steep slope. At the bottom, Jez tread lightly to maintain a steady pace. “They need the snow plough to make a path around the base of the mountains if they want to follow in vehicles,” he yelled, taking control, “so we’ll be well away before they’re organized. The foot soldiers are a different matter. Most of the Spetsnaz troops seemed to have left with the gunships. As I see it, there are probably six bodyguards left able to come after us. They will come directly up the mountain, but that will take them hours.”
Pavel agreed. “Don’t forget the regulars. There was a full unit, they won’t move as fast as the lead team, but they can still pull a trigger,” he said. “The goldmine. If we can get to the goldmine we have a chance. Too many tunnels there for them to take efficient action.”
This time Jez agreed.
Chapter 4
They moved in silent mode, Jez concentrating on the task ahead. Noon came and daylight faded, but they pushed on for another eight hours into darkness, until at last they reached one of the snow caves Jez had dug out before meeting up with Pavel. It was with reluctance he said, “This isn’t far enough, is it?”
Pavel heaved a sigh. “Probably not. With Irishka’s personal guard on our heels it would be stupid to take anything for granted.”
Wearily, Jez forged on, following the small signs left on the way back to the Gulag, until coming to one of the shelters they had built together.
“The guard will have stopped to rest by now – to conserve energy. I think we should do the same.”
Jez nodded and settled, agreeing with Pavel that three hours should be their limit. But the time passed too quickly and after allowing a few additional minutes for sustenance and then securing their latticed snowshoes to their boots, they were off again. As they ploughed on through the thick snow, a helicopter circled several times while shining their lights on them.
“They’re not shooting. They want us alive for interrogation; probably hoping if there are any others left we will tell them where they are,” Jez said. “There’s no point in hiding; the pilots will have already reported several of our waypoints. It wouldn’t take Einstein to make a linear charting and determine our heading, so they’ll know we’re going to the mine and will be waiting for us. We’ll rest up at the next snow hole and see if we can come up with something radical.”
At the targeted hol
e, Jez nested in and the hollow was quick to warm. He said, “The way I see it, we have to double back, try and get behind the trackers.”
Pavel sighed with mock exaggeration. “And here was me thinking I was about to get my head down.” His eyebrows came together. “Okay, the only way we can be certain of not bumping into the enemy is if we return on the other side of this run of mountains. There are no ravines, so we’ll have to go straight up and over the top. They won’t be that far behind, so we have to travel in darkness. That means going now.”
Jez nodded. “You’re right, but the temperature wasn’t far off minus sixty-five when we came in here. The snow was getting heavier, which will lift the temperature, but it will make it hard going. You’re the expert. Can we do it?”
Pavel twitched, wrinkled his face, opened his fingers and closed them into fists then looked at Jez, and grinned. “I was wiggling my toes, too. Everything works; no signs of frostbite yet. And we’ve made way in heavy weather this far. I think we can give it a go.”
The plan had pros and cons. The cons: it was blowing a blizzard, which, coupled with below-freezing temperatures, made the journey that much more arduous. The pros: it was blowing a blizzard and only a fool would venture out in such weather. Jez smiled. At least they’d be safe from their pursuers and the conditions would cover their trail.
At the base of the climb, Jez removed his snowshoes, strapped them to his backpack and began his ascent up the sheer rock face. As he climbed, the sky cleared and the temperature dropped further, but it wasn’t as bad as he thought it might be – until the heavy cumulus returned. The air warmed a degree or two and thunder rumbled. Forked lightening scorched the underbelly of the clouds and wind chanted a chorus of frenzied screams as it dropped over the high depression and down through the narrow gorges of the rock face. Pavel pushed ahead and Jez followed feeling humbled by the enormity of nature. The thunder stopped, but the snowfall returned.
