Precipice: V Plague Book 9
Page 26
“Now, place your weapons on the ground or there will not be another warning shot,” Grushkin said. He added to his threat by raising the hand that held the lines.
Katie and Rachel had been sobbing, but went quiet when the Russian rifle had fired. Katie was breathing hard, a moan escaping her throat with each breath. I wanted to turn my head and check on her, but wasn’t going to take my attention off of the Russians.
Movement behind Grushkin caught my attention. It was Irina, and her hand was free! I hadn’t paid much attention to her, but I realized that she had only been cuffed by one hand, just like Martinez. Rachel and Katie had also been restrained that way until the grenades were strapped to them. Irina hadn’t been wringing her hands, she’d been picking the lock on her cuffs!
She knelt without moving her feet and carefully reached out for the big knife the Major had dropped when I killed him. To keep attention focused on me I moved slowly, flexing my knees and starting to lower my rifle to the ground. I froze and jerked my head around when Katie gasped in pain.
She was hanging from the cuffs, her legs not supporting her weight, and thrashing her head back and forth as she cried out. Her entire body began to convulse, sending vibrations into the winch cable, then she went perfectly still, head down and face obscured by her thick, wet hair.
Behind me I heard a sound like a baseball bat striking flesh. It was immediately followed by a soft thud as something hit the wet grass. I turned in time to see Irina whirl, the gleaming blade held in both hands. Blood fountained from a stump at the end of Grushkin’s arm. His severed hand, still grasping the lines that led to the grenade pins, lay in a small puddle of rainwater at Rachel’s feet.
The medic had begun to turn towards her, but dropped his rifle and fell backwards when she sliced his throat open, nearly decapitating him. Grushkin was moving, opening his mouth to shout for his troops. Irina took two steps and thrust the blade into his lower back, angled up. The tip appeared, pushing through the front of his uniform. With a scream of fury, the Russian woman pulled up on the knife, cutting, then turned and twisted the steel before pulling it out and watching Grushkin’s body fall to the ground.
The Russians forgotten, I straightened, turning and starting to go to Katie. I froze in my tracks when her head snapped up and she screamed. Her eyes were blood red. She had turned.
Also By Dirk Patton
Unleashed: V Plague Book 1
Crucifixion: V Plague Book 2
Rolling Thunder: V Plague Book 3
Red Hammer: V Plague Book 4
Transmission: V Plague Book 5
Days Of Perdition: V Plague Book 6
Indestructible: V Plague Book 7
Recovery: V Plague Book 8
Precipice: V Plague Book 9
Rules Of Engagement: A John Chase Short Story
Afterword
It is always hard to kill off characters that have come to feel like friends. All of them that died in this book were amalgamations of some pretty amazing people I’ve known over the years, and in a strange way it almost felt like I was betraying them. But just as in real life, not everyone survives contact with the enemy. So a shot of tequila and a heartfelt Rest In Peace to Colonel Jack Crawford, USA, Captain Jennifer Martinez, USAF and Technical Sergeant Zach Scott, USAF. You will be missed!
Unfortunately, the brutality and subsequent fear within the ranks of the Russian army is not fiction. Both under Soviet rule, and to a slightly lesser degree today, things as depicted in Precipice do happen. Can you even imagine living like that?
In my humble opinion I’ve done a pretty good job of making the Russians the very bad guys in this series. They really aren’t bad people, just have a history of governments that are both tyrannical and very, very dangerous. I was a bit of a student of Russian history and politics during the cold war, and like everyone else I kind of forgot about them when the Soviet Union broke up.
But to discount a nation of fiercely proud people who have a history of wanting strong leaders was a mistake. Events are occurring in the world today that 30 years ago would have been at the top of every news cycle. Russian bombers flying patrol patterns 50 miles off the California, Washington and Alaskan coasts. Russian subs sneaking into Swedish territorial waters. Russian warships playing chicken with US warships, who thankfully are skippered by men who know enough to not allow themselves to be goaded into a fight. Russian state sponsored hackers attacking any and every DOD system there is, as well as many critical infrastructures such as utilities, banking and transportation.
We don’t happen to live in a safe world. I guess we never have, but the more technology advances, the more dangerous it gets. Only yesterday I read an article from a retired US Air Force Major General who is absolutely frightened to death by a new tactical nuclear weapon the Russians have developed. It can supposedly deliver a small yield bomb so accurately that the massive city killers we were all afraid of during the cold war are no longer needed.
The danger here is that with precision delivery and a smaller yield, these weapons could theoretically be deployed without creating the “nuclear winter” scenario. That means that someone, somewhere is already rationalizing the justification for use of one or more of them. Don’t know if that scares you, but it frightens the living shit out of me.
Forgive my rambling. I have strived from the first book to incorporate an element of reality into the story. No reanimated corpses here, just a megalomaniacal leader who set the world on fire. Perhaps I’ve spent too much time digging into what’s really going on in the world and ignoring the constant barrage of who Miley kissed or how big Kim’s ass is or…. Well, you get the idea.
Thank you very much for reading. You can always correspond with me via email at voodooplague@gmail.com and on the internet at www.voodooplague.com and follow me on Twitter @DirkPatton and if you’re on Facebook, please like my page at www.facebook.com/FearThePlague I enjoy interacting with my fans and I answer all of my email… eventually.
Thanks again for reading!
Dirk Patton
August 2015