Zrada

by Lance Charnes

  Rogozhkin cruises half a kilometer to where the paved street makes a sharp left, then turns right onto a sixty-meter dirt path that ends in a stand of trees. He weaves his Hunter to the back of the grove, slings his AS Val, then jogs a couple dozen meters toward the street, stopping at a second, smaller copse. He hopes Tarasenko isn’t too far behind; what they need to do has to happen quickly if it’s going to work.

  The Octavia pulls in a very long minute later. It’s coated with dust—he’d watched Tarasenko’s spectacular bit of stunt driving from the far end of Byryuky—but there are no obvious bullet holes or other damage. The driver’s door bursts open and Tarasenko bolts out, glowering. “Why are we stopping?”

  “The beacon is in the right taillight assembly. Get it out now.”

  While Galina digs through the car’s boot, Rogozhkin paces far enough away to avoid being overheard. He rings his counterpart with the Lev Brigade, which owns the territory he and the women are about to enter.

  “Zagitov. Is that you, Edik?”

  “Yes, it is. Does your gang of bandity still run a checkpoint outside Novyi Svit?”

  “Yeah, last I checked. What’s this I hear about you trying to dump the commander of your bunch of idiots?”

  Word travels fast. “I was trying to work out an orderly transition. One of our guys jumped the gun and botched it. Suddenly I’m to blame.”

  “Typical. What’s your interest in Novyi Svit?”

  They discuss the checkpoint situation while Rogozhkin watches the women. Galina sits in the boot with her legs sticking out, bent away from him, her shoulders and biceps moving like she’s working on something. She’d better step it up. Tarasenko’s at the end of the path, her pistol out and ready, watching the road.

  He finishes with Zagitov at the same time Galina holds up a small black plastic housing trailing a pair of wires. She glares at him. “Is this it?”

  “Yes.”

  She stalks to him and shoves the beacon into his breastbone. “Here.”

  At least she didn’t try to beat him to death with it. “Thank you. Please take the car into that grove at the end of the path. Go as far in as you can.”

  Galina stomps back to the car, then drives toward the trees.

  “They’re coming!”

  Rogozhkin spins toward the voice. Tarasenko’s jogging down the path toward him. He waves her into the nearby trees.

  By the time she crashes through the underbrush to join him, he’s buried the beacon under some fallen leaves. She pants, “What’s your plan?”

  “Is it just the scouts or the full platoon?”

  “All I saw were Hunters.”

  “Good.” Standing up to almost thirty men with heavy weapons would be suicidal. He points to the leaves. “They’re following this. There should be four of them, two in each vehicle. They’ll dismount to enter here. We let them gather, then eliminate all four. Then we drive away before the rest of the platoon arrives. Questions?”

  Tarasenko squints into his eyes. “Why haven’t we driven off already?”

  Because it doesn’t solve my problem. “We need to blind them. With the scouts gone, the platoon will take longer to move. That’s the margin we need to get across the Kalmius and lose ourselves in another militia’s territory.” The sound of engines creeps into the trees. “It’s time. Cover over there. Watch for crossfire.”

  Carson doesn’t like ambushes, but she understands them. The whole Wild West thing of walking down an empty street and trying to draw faster than the other guy is fundamentally stupid. If you have to get rid of your enemies, you do what’s safest and most effective for yourself.

  She gets what Rogozhkin’s doing, and why. She doesn’t have to like it.

  The engines grow close—sounding more like VW Beetles than military vehicles—then stop. Doors clunk open. Boots hit the ground. Carson, prone, squirms farther into the deadfall and leaf litter, wipes her hands one-by-one on her jeans, then tries to pump herself up to shoot men in the back.

  Twigs snap and brush rattles as the soldiers advance toward the tracker bug. Carson can follow where the men are by how their little noises move left-to-right in her sound picture. After a few seconds, one of them passes no more than two meters in front of her. He joins a second three meters from her. It’s closer than she likes. She’s glad Galina’s at the end of the road with the car; she doesn’t need to be involved in this mess.

  A militiaman says in Russian, “It should be here.”

  Another says, “It’s in a car. We’d see a car. This isn’t a forest.”

  A third grumps, “No shit. Where is it?”

  Phut.

  A body hits the ground. An unmistakable sound.

  A man’s voice: “What the…?”

  Phut.

  The more distant of the two troops she can see pitches forward, chasing the spurt of blood jetting from his mouth.

  Rogozhkin. The AS Val. It’s suppressed.

  The soldier in front of Carson swings around wildly, his carbine raised, searching for a target.

  Phut.

  Another body falls to Carson’s ten o’clock. The last soldier standing—the one in front of her—pivots toward the sound, rocking back and forth on his feet (wasted energy). An odd keening sound leaks out of him. He may not even hear it. Terror does strange things to people.

  No fourth shot. This one’s hers. Carson sighs. She sidearms a small rock straight out to her right. It clacks off a tree trunk. The soldier spins, shoots twice. Carson takes her time, lines up her shot on the center of his body armor, then fires one round. The soldier snaps backward and falls, his arms spreading on his way down.

  When she steps into the tiny clearing around the hidden tracker, she sees three bodies splayed out in a semicircle, two with head wounds. The third man—the one she shot—gasps and whimpers, clutching his chest.

  Rogozhkin steps out of his hide, checks the two dead men nearest him, then paces to the soldier who’s still alive. He watches the man for a moment, then shoots him in the head.

  Carson flinches. She didn’t need to see that up close.

  When she opens her eyes again, Rogozhkin’s giving her a sort-of disappointed look. “Always finish your enemies. You don’t get rewarded for mercy.”

  She hates the thought, but he’s right. Stas didn’t finish her off when he could have, and she killed him for it.

  By the time they get the vehicles arranged nearby and move the patrol’s Hunters just off the trail, Rogozhkin has three dead militiamen lined up at the grove’s edge. “Load those in the nearer militia vehicle,” he says. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Carson says, “Fewer’s better. The rest of the platoon could show up anytime.”

  He nods. “Noted. I’ll be quick.”

  Only one of the three bodies is unusually heavy. Galina sacrifices an old towel to wrap their heads to reduce the blood transfer. Carson and Galina each take an AK-74, six spare magazines, and a wound kit, and pack them in the Octavia.

  Carson checks her watch. They’ve been here for over twenty minutes. What’s Rogozhkin doing? Where’s the rest of the patrol?

  Rogozhkin backs out of the trees, dragging a corpse by its armpits. He’s now wearing a militia lance corporal’s uniform and field gear. The body’s dressed as a spetsnaz lieutenant colonel.

  Carson growls, “What. The fuck?”

  “I’ll explain later. Help me put this in my driver’s seat.”

  Together they wrestle the body into place. Galina watches the process with her arms folded, shaking her head. Rogozhkin tosses his AS Val into the passenger footwell, hauls his bags and the icon from the Hunter to the Octavia, then jogs into the trees again.

  Galina helps make room in the Octavia’s trunk for the icon. “What’s the Kacáps doing?”

  “No idea.” Whatever it is, she wishes he’d hurry.

  Rogozhkin returns in a minute with an AK slung across his back and a grenade in each
hand. He offers one to Carson. “Have you ever used a grenade?”

  She waves it away. “Once. Scared the shit out of me.”

  “No shame in that. It’s good to respect the weapon.” He hooks the spoons on his gear belt, shrugs the AK into his hands, then without any warning, empties an entire magazine—thirty rounds—into his Hunter’s front and sides. Carson shelters at the Octavia’s nose so she doesn’t have to watch the dead soldier behind the wheel jerk and jolt under the barrage. A muffled blast ends a few seconds of relative silence, causing a small rainstorm of broken safety glass.

  He has two grenades. Carson plugs her ears and opens her mouth to limit the damage the next explosion will do. First comes the grenade’s heavy thud, then the roar of twin explosions that toss pieces of the Hunter into the road and through the trees. She peeks over the Octavia’s roof. The Hunter’s remains burn so hot that they warm her face even though the fire’s several meters away.

  Galina draws up next to her. She watches the SUV blaze for a few beats, then smiles. “I like to see Russian things burn.”

  Rogozhkin waves Carson toward him. “I need you to take a picture with your phone,” he tells her. “Make sure you include the front registration plate.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it now before the plate melts.”

  Carson squats, snaps four photos of the cooking Hunter from different angles—she pretends she doesn’t see the dead soldier burning behind the steering wheel—then shows them to Rogozhkin, who chooses one. He holds up his phone. “Send it here. Tell them where it is so they can follow up. Make sure you mention it’s Russian.”

  The email address ends in “osce.org.” The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe runs the monitoring mission in the Donbass. She’s seen their white Toyota SUVs a couple times since she got here.

  When Carson gets back to the Octavia, Galina cocks her head and peers at her. “Did the Kacáps pretend to kill himself?”

  “Yeah. I just told the OSCE about it.” She watches the burning Hunter slowly collapse on itself. “You want to drive dead bodies or everything you own?”

  “You drive the dead men.” Galina’s smile is almost a snarl. “You helped kill them.”

  Chapter 44

  Carson and Rogozhkin watch the militia Hunter with the crushed side slowly sink into the little reservoir outside Horbachevo with its load of three dead men. Galina stands a couple of meters away from them. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near Rogozhkin.

  “So, are you dead now?” Carson asks.

  Rogozhkin gives her a sly smile. “Let’s not talk about that yet. I’m still adjusting to my demotion.”

  Must be in deep shit with his people to do all this. “The militia will notice it’s lost its scouts.”

  “Oh, but it hasn’t yet. I’ve been speaking for them on the radio. You bandits abandoned your car in town and must have stolen another one. We engaged that nasty Russian and killed him. We’re looking for the money.”

  “They’re buying that?”

  “Enough. So far. They’ll be concerned when they arrive in town and all they find is a burned-out vehicle. That may be a while, though, since one of their BTRs broke down. I hope we’ll be through Novyi Svit by then.”

  “Their mechanics suck that bad?”

  He chuckles. “No. They’re actually quite good. The BTRs are that old. You don’t think we give them our best equipment, do you?”

  Carson’s starting to understand why Mashkov’s so pissed at the Russians. “So now what? There’s gotta be a checkpoint going into Novyi Svit.”

  “There is.” The Hunter’s death throes seem to have stalled. The rear sticks almost straight up with perhaps half a meter still above water. Rogozhkin shakes his head, pulls his Makarov, then shoots two holes in the rear window. Air whistles out until the SUV disappears in a cloud of spray and bubbles.

  Pro tip: always punch out the rear window. “Should we care about the checkpoint?”

  “Of course we should.” Rogozhkin stashes his pistol and heads for the surviving Hunter. Carson follows. “If we were going to cross it. We’re not. They’re expecting us there one way or another, so we’ll avoid it. I know another way to get from here to the causeway across the Starobeshevska Reservoir. The roads are crap and it works only if the area’s bone dry, which it is now. Galina’s car should be able to make it.” He opens the driver’s door, then turns to peer at Carson. “You hesitated before you shot that militsioner. Why? Did you lose your nerve?”

  She returns his look with her death stare. “No. I don’t like killing people who don’t need it. Guess I’m still part human.”

  Their eyes stay locked together several seconds. Then he nods. “You still have a conscience. I hope that doesn’t get you killed. It would be a sad waste.” He climbs behind the wheel. “There’s nothing obvious about the route. Try to keep up.”

  He wasn’t kidding.

  Carson and Galina take turns wrestling the Octavia along the seemingly endless network of dirt tracks, tractor paths, and railway maintenance trails Rogozhkin leads them through. The ceaseless jouncing and jolting keeps slamming the armrest and seat harness against Carson’s bruises and aggravates her headache. The GPS says the straight-line distance is just shy of five klicks; she doubts they travel in a straight line more than a hundred meters at a time. The only silver lining: the sedan has decent suspension. If they were still driving Galina’s old car, either it would be dead or she and Galina would be crippled.

  They finally graduate from a rutted dirt path to a gravel road as they cross into the northern fringe of Novyi Svit. Rogozhkin pulls over at a place that offers a stunning view of an active rail yard. None of them move without a lot of groaning and gimping. Carson can hardly lever herself out of the car.

  Rogozhkin tells them, “The next part is easier. The roads are paved up ahead. We can stop at a café I know about two kilometers from here. It’s not much—it’s in the bus station—but it hasn’t killed me yet. Then we go over the reservoir, turn left twice, and we’re on the T0508 to Starobesheve. Any questions?”

  Carson’s back cracks like a breaking tree branch when she stands straight. “Yeah. Am I shorter?”

  Rogozhkin holds up a thumb and forefinger held about an inch apart. Deadpan until a little smile creeps out. Galina rolls her eyes.

  They stop at the café to tank up on Russian and Ukrainian comfort food, then drive past the industrial hellscape of a major powerplant on their way south to the causeway. The T0508 heading southeast to Starobesheve is blessedly boring for almost five klicks. The fields on either side are flat in a way that makes pancakes look like the Alps. The powerplant at Novyi Svit dominates the landscape even from several kilometers away.

  Then everything stops for a checkpoint. After over fifteen minutes in line, they cut into a gas station to fill up. A cop wanders by looking for graft opportunities, takes one look at Rogozhkin, and scurries away.

  A rutted dirt track runs south from the gas station for about three-quarters of a klick. Carson slows the Octavia so it stays out of the cloud of dust Rogozhkin’s Hunter throws up. It’s rough, but it’s better than twisting their way through Starobesheve. Fewer cops.

  When they reach the highway, the Hunter slides to a stop. The Octavia joins it a few seconds later.

  The highway’s jammed with armored fighting vehicles and military trucks, all trundling southwest toward the line of contact. The rumble and the exhaust fumes overpower everything else, even inside closed cars.

  Every one bears the shield of the Makiivka Brigade.

  Chapter 45

  Mashkov pinches the bridge of his nose. If the constant clatter and vibration inside the command BTR wasn’t bad enough, now he has to deal with this mess. He un-mutes his radio headset. “Pioneer, Makiivka One. How long have you been out of contact with your scouts?”

  “Makiivka One, Pioneer. Ehm…forty-five minutes or so.” Lots of static on the transmission. O
f course; a clear signal would be too easy.

  “Pioneer, Makiivka One. Was there anything unusual about their last communications?”

  “Makiivka One, Pioneer. No sir. They said they killed the Russian and abandoned the Škoda. They’re following the women to Novyi Svit. We can’t find the Škoda here, so…”

  So what happened to them? “Pioneer, you found the Russian’s vehicle, yes?”

  “Makiivka One, that’s affirmative. It’s burned to the axles, but there’s definitely a dead man in it.”

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “Negative, Makiivka One. He…well, it looks like a half-eaten roasted pig, sir.”

  God, what a picture. Mashkov mutes his mic, then sighs. Is Rogozhkin dead? He wouldn’t have expected four privates could take down one of the vaunted spetsnaz, far less trap him in his vehicle. But Rogozhkin was getting on in years and had that bad leg, so maybe he just couldn’t fight hard enough anymore.

  But what about the money? Do those damned women have it now? Or…did the scouts find it? They kill the Russian, search his Hunter, and find a bag full of euros. Even a four-way split would make them all well-situated to bolt to the West and set themselves up anywhere. That could easily explain the radio silence.

  Mashkov tells Pioneer to join up with the brigade in Styla, then waves Vasilenko out of his seat in the rear of the AFV.

  The senior sergeant squats next to Mashkov’s seat and braces against a bulkhead. “Yes, sir?” He has to yell to be heard.

  Mashkov tells him the short version of the patrol’s situation. “I need you to write a message for me. Have MOD pass it through to the police in every town in the region. Include the Škoda’s registration plate number and descriptions for Rogozhkin and the two women.” He pauses to weigh his options. “Send the plates for the two scout Hunters with Pioneer, too.”

  Vasilenko’s eyebrows levitate. “Sir?”

  Mashkov gives him a go-with-it wave. “Identify and detain. Spread the info through the brigade while you’re at it. The more eyes we have looking, the better.”