Without Warning

by Darrell Maloney

  They were to travel only at night, and would sleep in heavy woods during the day.

  Vlad teamed up with two men, Ilov and Fedor.

  They seemed to get along great that first night as they trekked through the forest in western British Columbia.

  Come daybreak, though, Ilov and Fedor didn’t stick around long. When Vlad fell asleep and started snoring like a hibernating bear they saw the writing on the wall.

  They deserted their comrade and made camp half a kilometer away.

  Now poor Vlad was on his own.

  -24-

  Screw them, Vlad thought. He mistakenly believed, by the way they stole away like thieves in the night, that they’d deserted. It never occurred to him they left Vlad behind, fearing their own safety should his snoring bring the locals.

  They had visions of farmers with pitchforks stabbing them to death in their sleep.

  Vlad, for his part, had no problem traveling alone.

  He’d take great glee at the first checkpoint, reporting that Ilov and Fedor had betrayed Mother Russia and were on the run.

  He hoped they’d be captured and made an example of. Brought before the very unit they’d deserted from for their firing squad.

  Vlad hoped he’d be given an opportunity to be on the firing squad, for he considered them leaving him all alone in the woods a personal affront. This was supposed to be a team effort. They were supposed to support and protect one another. That was the whole reason they were told to travel in twos and threes.

  Vlad had never killed another human being.

  He assumed he’d have to in war, but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  But he’d help shoot Ilov and Fedor if he got the chance.

  He’d rather not shoot any Amerikans, but would if he had to.

  He secretly hoped the Amerikans would just roll over and play dead. That they’d welcome the Russians as conquering heroes for rescuing them from the thumb of Washington and all the evil it wrought upon them.

  He didn’t really want to kill the Amerikans. He wanted to be their hero, sure. He wanted to find himself an Amerikan girl, for that was something none of his brothers could ever accomplish.

  Vlad was equipped just like the other men in his outfit: with night vision goggles and batteries, a hunting rifle, a handgun for self defense, a GPS device and a map to get him to the first checkpoint.

  Everything was procurable commercially at any Canadian sporting goods and hunting store. The idea was to remove anything which would identify them as Russian.

  He was also provided ten days worth of high-calorie rations and forty bottles of water, also commercially produced and sold in Canada .

  It was supposed to be just enough to sustain him until he got to the first checkpoint. At that time he’d be given a new map to the second checkpoint, and enough rations and water to sustain him for the second leg.

  The Red Army had put a lot of thought into this.

  It was important that no one on the team knew their final destination until they arrived at the last checkpoint.

  The officers at the first checkpoint memorized the GPS coordinates for the second checkpoint. They had maps, but were told not to mark the maps until members arrived. That way if they were overrun by authorities they’d glean no information from them.

  Vlad only knew he was to report in at the first checkpoint within ten nights. He had no idea whether that was his final stop or if he had a hundred more checkpoints to go to.

  He hoped not, because he was already tired of walking.

  His second night out he was totally alone.

  His backpack was heavy with bottled water. He was told it would get lighter as his journey progressed, but he knew that was relative.

  Yes, the backpack would be lighter with each bottle he emptied and threw aside.

  But he’d be a little bit more tired each time, having walked farther and farther with each passing night.

  So even though his pack would indeed be a bit lighter on each successive night, it would actually feel heavier than the night before.

  Because he’d be more exhausted than the previous night.

  At about an hour before dawn on the second night he began looking for a good hiding spot.

  He’d spend his day there, sleeping and letting his body recover from the long hike he’d just undertaken.

  Part of the training he’d received on the boat, besides using a compass and reading a GPS indicator, was how to bed down hidden from view.

  “You’ll be in a forest,” he was told along with the others.

  “Look around for fallen limbs which still have their leaves attached.

  “If there aren’t enough to cover you, break some more off the trees.

  “Find a low spot in the thickest part of the forest and cover yourselves with the branches. Roll down your sleeves. Your clothing is woodland camouflage for a reason. Put your camouflage gloves on and place your camouflage netting over your face.

  “If you camouflage yourselves properly no one can see you beneath the branches, even if they walk within a few feet of you.”

  That first day Vlad got away with it.

  The second day he did as well.

  On the third day, a Tuesday, two Canadian hunters made their way through the woods about fifty meters away from him.

  “Hey… do you hear that?”

  “Yes. I think it’s coming from that rise over there. On the other side of the creek. What do you think it is?”

  “Sounds like an animal snoring.”

  “Animals snore?”

  “Some of them do. I was able to sneak up on a moose once because he was sleeping and snoring loudly.”

  “Really? I never knew that.”

  The two very quietly followed the sound until they were just a few yards away from it.

  “I think it’s coming from beneath that brush pile.”

  “What kind of animal would sleep beneath a brush pile?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t think it’s a bear, do you?”

  “I hope not. Should I fire a shot into it?”

  “I don’t know what else to do. I’m sure as hell not going to crawl in there to see what it is.”

  The first hunter shrugged his shoulders, raised his rifle, and fired a shot into the brush.

  .

  -25-

  No, Vlad didn’t die.

  It was his lucky day.

  He was actually awake when the shot was fired, stirred by the men’s conversation just a few moments before.

  He was in that place between sleep and full consciousness, trying to make sense of the foreign language he’d just heard. He was groggy and just a bit confused.

  The shot, which missed his leg by less than an inch and bored itself harmlessly into the ground, brought him instantly to life.

  He jumped up, throwing the branches piled upon his body near and far.

  The hunters were shocked to see not a deer, not a bear, but rather a man.

  They froze in place in disbelief.

  It was their very last mistake. For it gave a panicked Vlad, who firmly believed he was being hunted and was seconds from death, time to draw his handgun.

  Vlad had never accomplished much in his life. But he was a good shot.

  Before the hunters could raise their rifles in self defense, Vlad got off eight shots: four apiece.

  Vlad 2, Canadian hunters 0.

  Game over.

  When he saw what he’d done, Vlad freaked out.

  He’d been told by the propaganda officer while in the hold of the boat that Canadian civilians would be searching for them.

  That was why it was critically important, they were told, that they remain hidden.

  If discovered, they had two choices.

  One was immediate suicide, before they could be questioned or their nationality ascertained.

  The other was murder, if they were quick enough and accurate enough to take out any and all witnesses.

  Once his head cleared
and he pieced together what had really happened, Vlad realized he screwed up.

  Or then again, maybe not.

  He was told he had the option to kill.

  He didn’t want to, but he was glad he did. For if he hadn’t, these men certainly would have killed him.

  The problem, as he now saw it, was that nobody told him what to do with them after he shot them.

  They’d given him no shovel with which to bury them.

  They’d given him no matches with which to burn the bodies. In fact they’d taken the effort to search the team before they disembarked the boat. Cigarettes and matches or lighters were strictly forbidden.

  He decided not to try to hide or cover the bodies.

  He decided to skedaddle.

  Never mind that it was broad daylight, and it had been stressed to him over and over that he wasn’t to move except in darkness.

  He should have dragged the bodies into the brush, covered them with branches and leaves. He should have known they wouldn’t start stinking until hours later. The following day, probably. And by then, by the time the smell of a rotting corpse brought others, he’d have a whole night to gain distance between the bodies and himself.

  Yes, he should have covered them and then hunkered down himself again.

  Even if he was too tense to sleep any more, which was highly likely given recent events, he would still be under cover until darkness.

  Did we mention that Vlad was his family’s underachiever? That he’d never really excelled at anything?

  It may have been because his brothers and sisters were just blessed with more intellect, more athletic abilities, more gifts.

  Maybe his brothers and sisters were just luckier; maybe they were always in the right time and place to take advantage of opportunities when they came along. Perhaps Vlad just missed his share of such opportunities out of sheer bad luck.

  Or maybe, more probably the case, Vlad was just a royal dumbass.

  -26-

  In any event, Vlad left the bodies where they fell, making no effort to hide or dispose of them.

  He took off into the woods at a fast trot, running headlong into a thick bramble bush. He scratched himself on the arm bad enough to leave several drops of blood on the ground.

  Now, that didn’t worry him much. He’d been scratched before enough to bleed, since he’d always been a clumsy sort of fellow.

  And it wasn’t that bad, as scratches go.

  The infection it caused later would knock him into the dirt and make him wish he’d never volunteered for this particular mission. But that was later.

  All he was concerned about now was getting far away from the men he’d killed, then to go to ground again.

  After an hour or so of running he figured it was far enough, and Vlad the Snorer sat down upon a boulder to catch his breath.

  He looked around. The heavy woods had thinned considerably. There were few trees around, and even fewer branches with which to cover himself.

  The trainers on the boat didn’t give him a Plan B under such conditions.

  But he found his own: a cave on a hillside which looked big enough to accommodate him.

  He investigated it warily, assuming any animal large enough to occupy such an abode wouldn’t be one he’d want to mess with.

  But he needn’t have worried.

  There was no musky smell which would have indicated an animal lived there recently. No scat or trace of it. No fresh footprints or scratch marks in the dirt floor.

  He had the impression it was a natural cave, and not one a bear scratched out of the earth to hibernate in.

  The only two animals he feared in the forest were bears and wolves, and he determined that neither would invade his new home as he slept.

  He rolled out his bed roll on the floor of the cave, then stretched out upon it.

  Normally his mind would be heavy thinking about the two men he’d killed, and how close to death he came himself.

  But he was exhausted, and could feel his body melt away and into the cave floor. His eyelids grew heavy as he faded away.

  He was asleep within minutes and wouldn’t wake up until well into the night.

  At the same time Vlad the Snorer started to stir, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were processing a crime scene about two kilometers to the west of him.

  Now, there are a lot of things Vlad didn’t know. We’ve already established that he wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed, or even in the top ten.

  One might say there were a heck of a lot more things Vlad didn’t know than things he did.

  For example, he didn’t know (but should have foreseen) that his loud snoring might get somebody’s attention.

  He didn’t know that the hunters he killed were actually hunting illegally. They’d already taken two moose bulls in recent days. They’d taken the heads and the huge racks they sported, but left the carcasses there to rot.

  That was strictly forbidden in Canada, as in most other civilized countries of the world.

  He didn’t know the eight shots he fired at the pair of unlucky hunters could be heard by conservation officers who were tracking the men.

  Conservation officers, it should be noted, are what Canada calls its game wardens. They are dedicated to protecting wildlife from illegal hunters and poachers, and take great offense to both.

  Vlad didn’t know that when he fired those eight shots, a team of conservation officers were only half a mile away as the crow flies.

  Still, it took them hours to arrive at the scene of the shooting because it’s darned hard to follow gunshots clustered together in heavy woods.

  Even before the officers arrived on the scene they contacted the Mounties. They highly suspected a crime had taken place.

  They were used to hearing one shot, as most hunters don’t take a second right away.

  Occasionally they’ll hear a second shot after a few minutes, when a merciful hunter puts an animal out of its misery.

  They never hear eight shots clustered closely together.

  When they found the bodies, the Mounties were already on their way. They just had to be directed to the scene by radio, using the GPS coordinates provided by the conservation officers.

  Around the same time Vlad woke up, around ten p.m. or so, the bodies of the men he murdered were covered with yellow tarps. The murder scene was bathed in light from a light-all a helicopter had brought in, and forensic specialists were scouring the scene looking for clues.

  Oh, yes.

  And the dogs were on their way to the scene.

  Because the crime scene was in an isolated location there were no tracking dogs nearby. They had to be brought in from Calgary, Alberta, a fair piece away.

  But they were experienced trackers, a team of three, and they usually got their man.

  Such animals are called bloodhounds in America and in old gangster movies, and tracking dogs everywhere else in the world.

  They only work in the daytime, as tracking at night is inherently dangerous for them as well as their handlers.

  They would arrive at the scene at about midnight, and would be bedded down until morning light.

  By that time Vladimir would be several hours ahead of them, for he was a night traveler.

  Searchers had high hopes, though. For search dogs tend to move much faster than a man in the bush. There was no rain in the forecast which would wash away the scent. And they had the benefit of having a second dog team waiting to relieve the first after the first day of tracking.

  Things were not looking good for Vlad the Snorer.

  -27-

  July 17, 0545 hours local

  Pillager, Minnesota

  Jordan Myers crawled out from under the sheets and looked at the bedroom window. It was still dark outside. He usually slept until the sun came up in the morning.

  He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking at his alarm clock, which wasn’t due to go off for another hour.

  He debated whether he should just get up an
d stay up, or drain his bladder and come back to bed for another hour.

  His wife Katie, a very light sleeper, woke up as well when she felt him sit up. She propped herself up on one elbow and asked, “You okay, honey?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have to go to the bathroom. Go back to sleep.”

  No one had to tell Katie twice.

  Satisfied her husband wasn’t sick or dying, she plopped back down into her pillow without another word. In seconds she was asleep again, snoring softly in a way Jordan found cute.

  And maybe just a tiny bit sexy.

  Jordan was the worrier of the family. The one who carried more than his share of the load. Not physically, but rather emotionally. It was his nature to worry about things. And it often kept him awake at night.

  It wasn’t uncommon for the couple to retire together, after putting the kids to bed, around ten thirty when the local news went off.

  Katie would be dreaming by ten forty-five, and Jordan would still be looking at the ceiling at midnight.

  Now he had something new to worry about.

  Three nights of the last five he’d awakened in the night with an overpowering urge to use the bathroom. And as though that wasn’t bad enough, he had a heck of a time going back to sleep when he returned to bed.

  He was a man who used to sleep through the night. Yes, he had a hard time getting to sleep, but once he was there he tended to sleep like a bear.

  Now he slept like… well, like something less than a bear. Like something skittish which stirs easily. Like a bunny or a squirrel, maybe.

  He shook his head. Enough foolishness. He stood up and made his way quietly to the bathroom.

  As he stood in front of the toilet urinating he thought he heard one of the children sneeze.

  They were out of children’s cold medicine. He’d have to run to the supermarket and get some.

  He’d get some chocolate ice cream too. Ice cream made everything better. When he was a kid, every time Jordan or one of his siblings got sick enough to stay home from school, his own father went to the store and bought his sick child his or her own half gallon of ice cream.