The Target

by Saul Herzog

  The soldier on the left ducked and grabbed Lance around the neck. Lance punched him twice in the ribs, then reached up and grabbed his head. He clamped the man’s neck between his forarm and elbow and cut off his air supply. As he lost consciousness, the other two got to their feet and drew their weapons.

  “What are Russian soldiers doing in Latvia?” Lance said from behind the man he was holding.

  The officer fired a shot, which hit the unconscious man in the chest, and Lance pushed him forward at the other two. Then he drew his silenced pistol and killed the soldier on the left with a shot to the head.

  The officer fired again but Lance kicked his arm, causing the shot to fly harmlessly in to the air.

  The television crews had noticed the fight, and some of the cameramen had turned their lenses onto the action.

  Lance grabbed the officer and twisted his arm behind his back until he dropped his gun. Then he jammed his gun into the man’s ribs, holding him in front of him.

  “Smile, you’re on camera,” he said.

  The officer struggled and Lance jammed the gun harder against his ribs. “Not so fast,” he said. “Next bullet’s for you.”

  “What is this?” the officer said. “What do you want?”

  “Look at all those cameras,” Lance said. “You’re a dead man.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” the officer said.

  “Who ordered this operation here?” Lance said.

  More helicopters were approaching from the east and Lance knew they’d be carrying more soldiers.

  “Come on,” he said to the officer, pushing him forward toward his chopper.

  “What are you doing?” the officer stammered. “Where are you taking me?”

  Lance pushed him into the back of the chopper and cuffed both his wrists to the overhead handrail.

  Some of the cameramen had begun to approach and Lance turned the gun on them.

  “Everyone get back,” he said.

  He got into the driver’s seat of the chopper and powered up the engines. As the Russian choppers landed, he took off, heaing eastward.

  He’d have a few minutes headstart before any of them realized what was going on.

  “Where are we going?” the Russian soldier shouted from his seat in the back.

  Lance could barely hear him over the noise of the engines.

  Lance leaned back and said, “Who was responsible for what happened back there?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  Lance tapped his leg with his gun. “Look out there,” he said, indicating the icey forest beneath them. “You start talking, or I’m going to throw you out of this helicopter, you understand me?”

  “Fuck you,” the officer said.

  “I doubt the fall would kill you,” Lance said, “but it’ll break your legs. Then, it will either be the wolves or the cold that gets you.”

  “They’re going to kill me anyway,” the officer said.

  “All right,” Lance said. “So you want to jump?”

  The officer could see they were headed toward Russia. He knew Lance wasn’t lying.

  “I don’t know the whole picture,” the man said. “I was as shocked by what I saw as you were. I didn’t know they were going to do a thing like that. That was a Russian village. Those were Russian people.”

  “Who was responsible for carrying it out?” Lance said.

  “I don’t know,” the man said.

  “You better tell me something,” Lance said, nodding toward the forest below.

  “There’s a training camp,” the man said. “A secret camp. We had to transfer it to the GRU.”

  “Where?”

  “East of the Vecumu Meži. Just across the border.”

  The Vecumu Meži was the forest Agata Zarina had gone to in the first place. What she’d seen, and the reason the biplane was shot down, were in that forest.

  “If there was a camp that close to the border, NATO surveillance would have found it.”

  “No, not this camp,” the officer said. “It’s completely camouflaged.”

  “Then how do I find it?”

  “I’ll show you,” the man said. “If you promise not to kill me.”

  Lance nodded. “You show me then,” he said.

  “They’ll kill you,” the man said. “They’ll shoot us out of the sky.”

  “No they won’t,” Lance said. “You’ll give me plenty of warning.”

  They flew on for another minute or two and the man said, “It’s another mile up ahead. The camp. Over that rise in the east.”

  Lance scanned the forest for somewhere to land and the man said, “What are you going to do with me?”

  Lance didn’t answer. He had plans for the man. The helicopter would have been tracked the moment it entered Russian airspace, and it would be convenient for Lance if it were to fly back out of Russian airspace without him on it.

  “You know how to fly one of these things?” Lance said.

  The man nodded. “I think so.”

  “Just ease up slowly. Smooth motions. This is the throttle.”

  The man looked at him incredulously.

  “Who ran the training camp?” Lance said.

  “An old-timer from the GRU. That’s all I know.”

  “Someone senior?”

  “Definitely.”

  “From Moscow?”

  The man nodded. “From the First Directorate.”

  Lance landed the chopper at a small clearing in the trees and got out, leaving the engine running.

  He gave the soldier the key to the handcuffs and said, “Ease up gently, and if you want to live, fly west and turn yourself in to the Latvian forces.”

  The officer looked at him, then said, “Zhukovsky.”

  “What’s that?” Lance said.

  “That’s who you’re looking for. The man who ran the camp. Oleg Zhukovsky.”

  78

  Zhukovsky wiped spattered blood from his face as the vehicle pulled back into the camp. He felt a strange mixture of exhilaration and horror at what he’d done.

  He was sitting in the back seat, and in the passenger seat in front of him was Prochnow.

  They came to a halt and Prochnow turned back to look at him. He was about to say something when he stopped himself.

  “What is it, Prochnow?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “No, go ahead. You can tell me.”

  Prochnow shook his head, saying nothing.

  Zhukovsky looked at him for a moment before climbing out of the vehicle.

  “Coward,” he muttered as he made his way into his tent.

  At the entrance he stopped and turned back. His men were getting out of their vehicles, all of them covered in so much blood that they looked like extras from a horror movie.

  “Men,” Zhukovsky bellowed. “It’s done. Go clean up. You’ll be flying back to Saint Petersburg in thirty minutes.”

  He entered the tent and went straight to the toilet, grabbing the sink with both hands.

  All of a sudden, a wave of nausea passed over him like a shadow. He gripped the sink so tightly his knuckles were white, and his entire body shivered so violently that he was in danger of pulling the sink from the wall.

  He knew that he would never be able to forget the things he’d just done.

  For as long as he lived, the memory would haunt him.

  On his death bed, the sound of the screams would come to him.

  He looked up at the mirror slowly, as if afraid of what he might see, and when his eyes focused, he saw that there was so much blood on his face he looked like an ancient warrior in war paint.

  He turned on the water and began scrubbing violently at his hands and face, getting as much of the blood off his skin as possible.

  He looked down at his blood-soaked uniform and began clawing at it, ripping off his jacket and yanking at the shirt so violently that the buttons were torn out.

  He got off the shirt and washed his arms and chest, splashing the icey water all ove
r his upper body, when an orderly entered the tent.

  “Get out,” Zhukovsky yelled.

  “Sir,” the orderly said, holding a phone, “there’s a call from Saint Petersburg.”

  Zhukovsky took a deep breath and steadied his nerves, then walked over to the orderly and took the phone from him.

  Zhukovsky knew who it was, and took another long, breath before saying, “Kirov, it’s done.”

  He knew why he was being called. The mission had gone according to plan. It had been, depsite Zhukovsky’s overwhelming urge to vomit, a success.

  “Oleg Zhukovsky,” the voice on the other end of the line said, and to Zhukovsky’s shock, it was not the voice of Kirov, but of President Molotov himself.

  “Mr. President,” Zhukovsky gasped. “I wasn’t expecting…”.

  “Zhukovsky,” the president said, interrupting him, “I’m calling from the Winter Palace of the Czars, drinking champagne to your victory.”

  “Sir,” Zhukovsky stammered. “We…”.

  “We were victorious,” the president said.

  The president wasn’t alone. Zhukovsky could hear others in the background, drinking and toasting and celebrating.

  “We were victorious, sir.”

  “The work you did today,” the president said, “will form the groundwork for the complete restoration of the USSR. I hope you understand that?”

  Zhukovsky wasn’t sure what he understood.

  The president spoke in grand terms, but Zhukovsky didn’t think in such terms. The words failed to hold meaning for him. He knew only what he saw with his own eyes, what he felt, what he tasted, and right then, all he could taste was the metallic viscosity of human blood.

  “We are going to regain all the former power of the Soviet Union,” the president said. “We never ceased being a super power. Do you understand that?”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “This is a signal, a clarion, a shot across the bow. The world is on notice. What was it that Winston Churchill said?”

  “I’m not sure, sir,” Zhukovsky stammered.

  “From the Baltic to the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent of Europe.”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Well, Zhukovsky, you just restored that curtain. This is the first step.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Zhukovsky said, not sure at all how to respond.

  “You have gone far beyond the call of duty today, Zhukovsky. I know it wasn’t easy for you to take personal command of this team.”

  “It was an honor, sir.”

  “I just issued the orders for the Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division, the Częstochowa Tank Brigade, the 112th Guards Missile Brigade, the Warsaw Artillery Brigade, the 96th ISTAR, and the 69th Logistics, to cross the border into Latvia.”

  “I see,” Zhukovsky said, honored to be let in on such details by the president himself.

  The units the president mentioned were the most elite forces of the Western Military District, the cream of the Russian Army. This truly was the beginning of a new age of Russian aggression.

  “I want you back in Saint Petersburg,” the president said. “You’re taking over as GRU liaison.”

  “Taking over? What about Kirov, sir?”

  “Kirov,” the president said, “is hiding something from me. I haven’t figured out what it is yet, but I will.”

  “I’ll organize transport immediately, sir.”

  “No need. I’m sending you one of my personal choppers. Kirov will meet you when you land.”

  “I’m honored, sir.”

  “The world may never know of the blood you spilled today, Zhukovsky, but I know, and I’m going to make sure your name goes down as a hero.”

  “It is an honor to serve the Motherland, sir.”

  “Remember this moment, Zhukovsky. This is the feeling of Russia’s resurgence. This is the taste of victory.”

  79

  Lance moved carefully through the forest, ducking branches and placing every step carefully. He knew exactly the type of devices that would be placed around a facility of this nature and moved along the rutted track slowly, examining every twig, every blade of grass, until he found the first tripwire.

  The wire was connected to a POMZ-type fragmentation mine that had been placed on a stake twelve inches above the ground. It was a simple device, a crude sleeve containing a two-and-a-half-ounce rod of TNT. The sleeve was cut in a crosshatch pattern that ensured it would fragment into sharp shards in the event of detonation. It had a four meter kill radius but individual shards could easily be lethal at greater distances.

  This particular mine, which was concealed in the undergrowth, had been wired to detonate on release. If someone tripped it and realized, they could remain as still as possible and call for help. If they were still enough, and the help came fast enough, there was a slim chance the explosive could be disarmed.

  It was a precaution in case a friendly tripped the wire, which was far more likely than not at a camp like this.

  Lance went around the trip wire and crawled the last hundred yards through the brush until he reached the edge of the camp. There was the sound of a single generator, and he could also see signs of the extensive measures that had been taken to conceal the camp from the air.

  It was situated in a dip between two hills and he was able to get an idea of its general layout by climbing a tree overlooking the site. Even from that proximity, it was difficult to make out the tents.

  There were a few separate clearings, all covered with camouflage nets suspended from the trees. In each clearing was one or more army tents. One was likely a barracks, one a command tent, and there would be others for storage and equipment.

  It didn’t look like the camp housed more than about thirty or forty men. The generator was on, but most likely wasn’t used often for fear of giving away the camp to NATO surveillance drones, which monitored the area closely.

  Lance watched the site for a few minutes, long enough to get an idea of the locations of the few guards on duty, and when he heard two Russian Mi-8 choppers approaching from the north, climbed back down the tree.

  The first chopper was painted in the high-gloss camouflage pattern that was standard for the Russian military, but the second bore the gray, red and blue color scheme used for the Russian president’s personal fleet.

  Lance was also able to identify the distinctive square windows and over-sized external fuel tanks on the second chopper that marked it as having been upgraded for VVIP, or Very Very Important Person, transportation.

  For a second, he wondered if the president himself was on board.

  It would have been ballsy, but the Russian president had been known to take risks like that,

  A few years ago, he was filmed driving a tank over a frozen lake. He’d also once abseiled into a deep crevasse inside a Siberian glacier.

  The first chopper was a troop transport, and as it approached, two squads of men came out of the barracks tent and prepared to board. Lance knew that in all likelihood, he was looking at the men responsible for the massacre.

  Lance had no intention of letting them leave. Once that chopper flew out of here, tracking down all the men involved in what had happened would become exponentially more difficult.

  He checked the weapons he’d been supplied with by Greenfeld, two silenced fifth-generation Glock 17’s, a Latvian-issue assasult rifle with 3x optical sight, and a forty milimeter grenade launcher.

  The two choppers touched down in a small clearing outside the camp and Lance crept through the forest toward the site.

  Apart from the pilots, both choppers were empty.

  They were definitely there for the extraction of the soldiers responsible for the massacre.

  Lance prepared for his attack. He’d intended to wait for the soldiers to board the choppers, then hit them with a well-placed grenade once they were all packed in, but as he watched, he saw something curious take place. The pilots of both choppers, four men, got out and un
loaded some equipment that looked like a large fuel tank.

  They set it up next to the chopper, and attached a rubber hose from the top of the tank to a connector on the hull of the aircraft. Then they went to the main transport door and made some adjustments to the locking mechanism. Lance was about a hundred yards away, and he crawled carefully through the brush to get closer.

  When he was about fifty yards away, he saw that the chopper had been altered so that the passenger cabin was sealed off from the pilots. It’s windows had also been blacked out with what looked to be sheets of steel plate.

  Something wasn’t right.

  As the first of the soldiers came out from the barracks toward the chopper, the pilots stood by the doors and helped them board.

  To Lance, it looked as if they were making sure the men got on board and stayed on board.

  The soldiers had a sullen look about them. Lance knew that look. They’d been through an intensive regimen, which wasn’t surprising considering the task they’d just been given.

  And Lance had no doubt what was about to happen to them.

  Lance knew how the world worked.

  He knew the inexorable logic of the Russian military.

  These men were tools.

  They were expendable.

  And they’d performed their function.

  Apart from a small group of commanders, they were the only men alive who knew for certain what happened in the village of Ziguri. With the satellites down, with Latvia’s internal communications networks down, these men were the only witnesses.

  There would be survivors in the village, but their accounts would be confused, chaotic. Some would have heard Russian spoken, but others would have only seen the Latvian uniforms. All, in their terror, would have been overwhelmed by the screams of the dying, and the pools of blood that flowed over the cobbles in the square like rain water.

  In any case, Russia had already began securing the village and sealing it off. Once the invasion began, any eyewitness testimony would be heavily censored.

  Lance watched the men board the chopper, and when the last of them was onboard, the pilots shut the door and then locked it so that it couldn’t be opened from the inside. Then they went into the cockpit and fired up the engines. The engines revved, but the propellors didn’t turn. Instead, the sound of screaming could be heard from inside the sealed passenger compartment.