by L. J. Martin
I pull my radio off my belt. "Pax, what's your twenty?"
"Skip and I are at the edge of the farmyard, covering your incursion."
"TooBad, come back."
Nothing.
"TooBad?"
Nothing.
"Pax, you got a twenty on TooBad?"
"Have not seen him, and we haven't broken radio silence until now."
"We have two of the girls but the Holland girl escaped and is on the run. This place is vacant except for a woman. We may have a problem with TooBad, or he may have merely lost his radio or failed to turn it on. Pax, I'll meet you at the back door. We'll go after Holland. I want Skip to take these two girls out to the highway and stand by. They'll have to walk as he can't take both on the bike. I'm calling Natele to pick them up. You and I are going after the Holland girl. I'm leaving Hank here to watch the woman and to stake the place out in case they return, and particularly in case they return with the girl in tow."
"Ten four," he says.
No sooner do I hook the radio back on my belt than it vibrates again and I pull it off. "TooBad?" I ask.
"Who fucking is dis," comes back in a Russian accent.
I take a deep breath, then answer. "Admiral Killer Sloan, United States Navy SEALs," I lie, but it's good to have them think the SEALs might be after them.
"Then you bark like a fucking seal," the voice says.
"Where's the man who owns this radio."
"Sucking our dicks, that's where."
"TooBad?" I call into the radio, and it goes dead.
I eye Hank. "You can hold down the fort?"
"It'll be my pleasure to tie that cunt up," he says, nodding toward the blond, who I've made as Alena Misin. She's recovering, and eyeing us like she's very unhappy about not having her little semi-auto, or something much bigger, so she can ventilate our hides.
"Watch her closely. She's got a bad rep. Set up so you can see those assholes coming if they return. We've got to haul ass, so you're on your own."
"So do I, got a bad rep," Hank says, and I have to smile as that's a big understatement.
As Pax and I search the yard outside for Betty Jean's tracks, I phone Natele and fill her in. I know she's headed for the hotel door almost before I can hang up.
Now, to get Betty Jane Holland, then recover our buddy TooBad…I hope it's not recover his body.
15
Alexei and Zak moved away from the farmhouse. He knew these Seto people who were not really Russian or Estonian or Latvian, but consider themselves only Seto and independent. They had lived in the same part of Eastern Europe, that they called Setomaa, for centuries, and watched many conquerors, rulers, come and go. Setomaa meant "land of wars" in their Seto language. They were easily discernible as they still wore colorful costumes. The woman wore a triangular silver chest plate and coins, signifying their married status and wealth.
And they hated Russians, who had forced the collectivism on their farms and forbidden the Seto language, costumes and centuries old customs. Hated them with a fierceness that Alexei knew well, and that caused him to back away from the old man with the shotgun.
He decided to return to the dacha and wait for light. After all, this was merely a woman, and a girl at that. And barefoot. That, and the fact he'd forgotten his smokes and was twitching as he had been an hour without one. And the girl…she was probably hiding out in the woods, shaking in fear. They could track her far easier in the daylight.
Besides, he had friends across the lake. A half dozen members of his old regiment lived in the same village. He could hire them for a few rubles a day so he decided to call them, have them cross the lake and enter the forest a few kilometers ahead of where the girl could possibly have reached if she kept moving all night, and work their way back toward him and his boys.
They would trap her in a pincer.
He got on his cell phone and called his old Master Sergeant, Drago, in Chudskoe, Russia, across the lake. Drago answered on the first ring. He agreed to round up another six or seven, or more, of their old regiment and cross the lake before dawn, if he were paid five thousand rubles a day and his men three thousand each, plus fuel and ammo should they need to use the latter. Alexei assured them they would not, but should bring a few rounds. All of them had personal AKs and Drago had a pair of RPKs, Kalashnikov light machine guns, he offered to bring along as they could be mounted on the boat he operated to fish Lake Piepus—at times Estonian patrols were troublesome. Alexei informed him it wasn't that kind of mission, only a stupid American girl who'd run into the woods. Drago said what the hell, they were already onboard in case he wanted to fish over the border into Estonian waters.
But just in case the girl hadn't gone very far, in case they had passed her, hiding, somewhere in the woods, they would return to the dacha farther inland, watching and calling for Vlad and Vadim as they went, and watching for the girl.
They'd gone less than a kilometer when Vadim returned their calls, and they closed the distance.
When Alexei was only twenty paces from them, he realized they were three, and one of them was on the ground, moaning.
Pax and I are able to track the barefoot prints of the girl easily as she'd moved north along the lake, but now her tracks disappear as she'd turned west, into the forest.
We spread out, twenty paces apart, and shielded the beams from our flashlights as best we could. But we did not pick up her prints again.
However, I raise my eyes and see a dim light in the distance. Not a moving light as if someone were carrying a flashlight, but a fixed one.
I double click the radio and Pax gives me the high-sign that he's listening, and I whisper.
"You catch that light up ahead?"
"Ten four."
"Let's put another ten to twenty yards between us and move up."
"Ten four."
And we move even farther apart. It's only steps before I realize the light is coming from a window, and the window is in a farmhouse or dacha. Probably a farmhouse as there's a barn in the distance, backlit by the stars and moon.
We move forward, flanking the place with a hundred yards now separating us.
When we're forty yards out, I double click again, then whisper. "I'm going straight in and knock on the door. You get a killing field where you can cover me."
"Ten four."
I sling the Ingram on my back and move forward at a brisk pace. I call out as I near the plank door. "Hello the house," as I would if I were entering a friendly camp.
I get no reply, so I knock quietly, and get no answer, so I knock more loudly.
The door finally swings aside, and the old woman at the door looks harmless enough, but I take a step back as I see an old man behind her…and he has a double barrel shotgun in hand, and even as frail as he seems, I'm sure he has enough strength to pull the triggers.
Extending both hands, palms out, I ask, in a quiet unthreatening tone, smiling as I do so, "A girl? About this high?" I hold my hands up to about five feet eight.
The woman looks at me with furrowed brows, and shrugs. I guess that's a universal expression.
"Betty Jean Holland. A lost girl?"
The woman motions me away and starts to close the door in my face, but I block it with a hand on the door.
"Aghhh," she groans, trying to push it shut.
"Please, I need help finding this girl," I say. But the old man steps forward and threatens me with the firearm, so again I give him both palms extended in supplication. "Sorry, sorry to bother you," but I have to call out before I make my exit. "Betty Jean Holland."
Then the old woman shuts the door and I hear the bolt being thrown.
Betty Jean had fallen asleep under the bed, and she awoke with a start, bumping her head on the rails beneath the mattress.
As soon as the cobwebs cleared from her mind, she listened intently. Were her pursuers back? Had they gotten in the house?
She eased to the edge of the bed and again lifted the ruffle and tried to see into the living room
/> Then she saw the hem of the old woman's skirt coming her way. And in moments the ruffle was again lifted, and the old woman was waving her out.
She was led to a table and seated at a bowl of delicious soup and a large chunk of crusty bread. B.J. had never liked buttermilk, but when the old woman poured a mug full, she drank it greedily as if it were the nectar of the gods.
When she was done with the meal, the old woman led her to another bedroom and a simple pallet on the floor, but the mattress covering it and the pillow and throw seemed all to be filled with down. She snuggled in, meaning only to rest her eyes for a little while, then she would continue on toward the village in the distance. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was gone to the world.
Pax and I move quickly, twice the pace we'd kept up while tracking. I wanted to get back to the dacha, fearing that Hank could be overwhelmed should all the men hunting the Holland girl return at once.
As soon as we're out of earshot of the farmhouse, I get on the iPhone-radio again. "TooBad, come back."
"Fuck you, American, or are you a bloody Brit?" a gruff voice says in return.
Then another voice is overheard. "Give me the radio. Hey, asshole, who are you?"
"Hunters," I say. "We are stag hunting."
"Sure you are, with automatic weapons. I have your man and will have no problem putting a very small hole in his head so his very small brain can leak out."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. We are a platoon of Navy SEALs, and if I were you, I'd leave the girl and fade into the forest."
"What girl?"
"If you don't know what girl, then it should be of no interest to you, nor should my associate. Leave him…I presume he's still alive or you wouldn't suggest putting a hole in his head…leave him and fade into the forest and you might live for another bowl of borsht or bottle of vodka. Maybe even a fat Russian whore."
"Fuck you," he says.
"No, it's you who's fucked."
"We shall see," he says, and the last thing I hear is a gunshot, then the radio goes dead.
Then I remember the find your buddy feature, go to the app and poke in the number, and up comes a Google Earth map and their exact location, only two clicks southwest of us.
And I'm sure they know we're coming.
16
When you know you're on the hunt and the prey is the most dangerous of all, man, then you move slowly and carefully. But when you are trying to save a buddy, you move quickly, no matter the prey.
And we do stride out while still trying to move silently. I get on the radio and check in with Hank, who's set up on the second story of the dacha, moving from window to window, and waiting for some action, but has seen no one yet, then check with Skip. I bring them both up to speed on TooBad and his location.
Skip reports, "Natele and the NATO guy, Goings are here and I'm turning the girls over to them."
"Natele will get them to safety. The assholes have TooBad's radio. We're moving on them now, thanks to the find-your-buddy feature. Go relieve Hank and tell him to head out north northwest, maybe two or three clicks. He can get the exact location with the app—at least where he's been. We're coming in from the northeast, so let's all be careful of the good guys. They'll likely head back to the dacha, so be damn careful."
"How come I gotta babysit?" he growls.
"Just fucking do it, Skipper."
"Ten four," he comes back, but I know he's unhappy.
I never should have sent TooBad alone. We should have stayed together, even if we did have less chance of tracking the girl. I hope I don't have that decision haunt me the rest of my days.
We close quickly and I watch the app to make sure they haven't moved, and they haven't. When we're two hundred yards out I stop Pax with a hand on the shoulder, and whisper.
"You take the left flank, I'll take the right. I figure they are set up to ambush us so let's pull a weewoka-switch on them. I'm going to go straight in, set up the hand held radio as a decoy when I figure I'm forty yards out, then move around behind…not the iPhone, the hand held. Check your watch. Give me ten minutes, then call the radio as if we're talking to each other and see if we can sucker them out and draw their fire. Make sure you're firing north or northwest and I'll make sure I'm north or northeast. I'd hate to have us ambush each other. We on the same page?"
"Ten four," he says.
"Remember, TooBad is in there somewhere. Know your target."
"Ten four," he says again, and we move off.
I hope they're not set up on my side of the location of the radio, but who knows…and I hope TooBad's body is not all I find.
As stealthily as I can, I move through the underbrush until my app says I'm forty five meters from the target, then I set the radio in the crotch of a tree, about head height, and slip back the way I came. Then I swing around until I'm forty meters southeast of the target, and presume Pax is about the same distance southwest. I find a spot with a few shooting lanes, and wait. Shielding the light from the iPhone I watch as it comes onto ten minutes. Then listen until I hear the crackling of voices in the distance, and know it's coming from the radio.
I expect to hear gunfire, but instead off to my left hear someone moving through the underbrush, then only ten yards away, I see a foolish guy in a white shirt moving from tree to tree, in the direction of the radio. The bad news is he's carrying what looks like an AK47, but the good news is he's going to come within a few paces of me if he continues on the same path.
Now, is there only one of them?
Alexei stood back in the trees west of the dacha. He could not see, but sensed, something wrong. Just as he was about to move up to where he could get a visual through the windows, a very large man came jogging up the driveway from the road. A big man, with a mane of blond hair that made him look lion-like in the moonlight.
He tracked the man with his AK and was surprised when he went directly to the front door, taking the porch steps two at a time, walking in without knocking.
Alexei was then convinced that his people were no longer in charge of the dacha. Alena must have been captured or killed, not that it mattered much to him. She was a piece of ass, but unlike most other women, one who could kill on command and had no compunction doing so. Tail was easy to find, a woman with skills and no conscious was another thing altogether.
He'd left Zak to stake out where he'd left the American tied up and gagged—and shot in the leg, through and through the thigh but probably missing the bone—with orders to kill anyone who came on the scene without calling out well in advance. Zak was built like a sack of cement and was twice as hard as concrete, and could kill with his bare hands. Alexei knew that for a very big man, big as a barrel of oil, he could move quietly, and no one was better with a knife than Zakhar Dziba.
Still, these men claimed to be SEALs, and SEALs were respected.
The hell of it was, the girl was out there somewhere and he had to find her before these interlopers did or all their planning was for nothing. And if Alena had been taken, so had the other two girls. His options were becoming more and more limited.
As he watched the house another man moved out the back door. This one also large, but he moved more smoothly than the first. Alexei then realized he was a black man, and he tracked him as well until he disappeared into the woods, in the direction Alexei had come from, where he'd left Zak and the bound and gagged American.
He should have quietly slit the American's throat and let him bleed out onto the forest floor, but he thought he might use him for bait, and maybe Zak would still put him to good use if others came looking for him. Whatever happened, that American was out of the game, and would likely bleed to death from the wound in his thigh. Or die from being bludgeoned by the butt of Zak's AK47.
Now Alexei had to make up his mind. Did he go to the dacha and see if he could recover the other two girls…not that they were worth one tenth of what the Holland girl was. Or did he wait for reinforcements. He had no idea if there were another hal
f dozen men in the dacha, but with men coming and going it was too great a risk to get close enough to study the situation through the windows.
Fuck Alena and the two worthless American sluts.
No, he decided to wait on his men from across the lake—all hardened combat vets who'd fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya or the Ukraine. Now he was glad Drago said he'd bring the two RPK machine guns. He faded back into the woods and made his way around and back toward the lake, then got on his cell phone and raised Drago and told him to come directly to the boathouse belonging to the dacha.
As soon as that call was taken care of, he realized he'd not heard from Vlad and Vadim, so he phoned them.
He was a little concerned when he got no answer.
Where the hell were they?
17
Vlad and Vadim still searched the woods in the darkness, the limbs pulling at them, the occasionally muddy spot sucking at their boots, sand flies from the nearby lake buzzing their eyes and ears.
Vald found a stump, large enough to make a decent stool, and plopped his wide butt down. "Goddamn that stupid Yegor, getting himself killed, letting our little golden American escape…the asshole always thought with his cock."
"She has not yet escaped," Vadim grumbled. "It is twenty kilometers to the next village. She is only a girl."
"But there are a half dozen Seto farms between here and there."
"Estonia should have never allow the Seto to return to their old vays…but they still fear we Russians, and they will not help some wild looking American girl."
"So, Professor Vadim, what do we do…did you bring your flask?"
"Of course, you think I would go in the forest without wodka?" Vlad looked at him like he was something to be dropped into the outhouse.
"Then share, you vorthless piece of shit."
"You think I vould share with someone who called me shit?" Vlad rose from his stump, and made the Italian sign for "up yours," throwing one arm up and hitting the crotch of his elbow with the other.