EndWar

A broad, flat plain of snow lay ahead, and more trees stood on the far horizon. She steered for them.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“You’re wasting my time, Colonel.” Major Alice Dennison sat at her station in the command post, arms folded over her chest, and sneered at the broken and defeated Russian on the screen.

“I did not talk under the influence of your drugs.”

“Sorry, but you did.”

“I did not!”

“You told us everything you know — which is, unfortunately, not enough.”

Colonel Pavel Doletskaya’s brows came together, and he began nervously pulling at the white whiskers on his chin. “You tell me what I said.”

“All right. Operation 2659 is the invasion of Alberta.”

“That’s shocking,” he said sarcastically. “I can’t believe you beat that out of me.”

“The twenty-six represents the duration of time you’ve given yourselves to gain full control of the province. But if, after twenty-six days, you’ve failed in that mission, the second part of your plan takes place, activation code five-nine.”

Doletskaya’s mouth began to open, as he realized that he had, in fact talked, but not willingly, as he pretended he wanted to do now.

She went on, “The snow maiden was, in fact, Colonel Viktoria Antsyforov, with whom you were having an affair until she went home one night and set fire to her apartment, killing herself and four of her neighbors.”

“I didn’t tell you that!”

“Yes, you did. Maybe you thought you were remembering it, but you were telling us. I’ll ask you one last time, but I don’t expect you know the answer: The activation code is for what? A second invasion? A tactical missile attack? What?”

He sighed loudly for effect. “I’m not aware of any activation code.”

“Yes, you are. She told you about the code. But she never told you what it meant. And then she died. So we’re finished talking, you and I.”

“Wait a moment, Major. If I told you everything already, then why did you agree to meet with me?”

She shrugged. “Just for confirmation.”

“No, I don’t believe that. I think… I think you are attracted to me.”

“You’re a sick bastard.”

“No, I think you are attracted to me because I have control over you. And you like that. You are always in control. And it’s so hard, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better to let me take care of everything? Maybe we can work together. Maybe there’s still hope for you and I.”

She rolled her eyes and thumbed off the call.

But she was trembling, visibly trembling. He was under her skin again, coursing through her veins like a poison.

She wanted to kill him.

Because maybe… he was right.

“We’ll split up and flank them,” said Black Bear over the radio. He looked up at Sergeant Raymond McAllen. “I’ll need you guys up top.”

McAllen nodded, but he had other plans.

Sergeant Rule had gone to another back door and had spotted a chopper on the ground, just behind the fire crew’s garage. The pilot and co-pilot were still inside, the rotors spinning. McAllen wasn’t sure if they were having a technical problem or just waiting to pick up troops, but he didn’t care. All he saw was an enemy bird worth capturing and taking back into enemy territory to pick up that fighter pilot.

Better to fly in with a big red star tattooed on their butts instead of a bull’s-eye.

But he was still torn between helping out these SF guys and the mission.

Oh, damn, he had to go with the mission; it came down from The Man himself.

He had to do… what he had to do. The apologies would come later, if these guys made it out.

“Khaki, you think you can fly that thing?”

The pilot made a face. “Don’t insult me. If it’s got a rotor, I can fly it.”

“All right,” McAllen said, eyeing the entire group. “We make a run for the garage. I don’t think they can see us from this angle. Then from the garage we move to the bird.” McAllen looked once more at Khaki. “Will a couple of holes in the canopy be a big deal?”

“Don’t chance that. Just show ’em a grenade and get ’em to open up.”

“All right then. Palladino? Gutierrez? You set up outside to cover.”

The sniper and medic nodded.

“Let’s go!”

During the 1970s there was a secret military research facility near Leningrad, where according to some former Soviet chemical weapons scientists Kolokol-1 was developed. The drug took effect within a few seconds and left victims unconscious for two to six hours.

In 2002, Chechen terrorists took a large number of hostages in an incident known as the Moscow theater siege. Kolokol-1 was used against them; however, large doses of the drug might have contributed to the deaths of more than one hundred of the eight hundred hostages.

Intelligence gathered from Russian Federation defectors between 2018 and 2020 indicated that the Russians had made further refinements to the incapacitating agent in order to make it “more safe,” though they had thus far not used it against civilian populations.