Russian Amerika: Chapter Forty Seven

47

    The slamming door woke Grisha. He rolled over and came to his feet clutching the machine pistol.

    "What?"

    Jackson moved over to him. "I just threw the Russian bitch out."

    "What?" Grisha became fully awake. "Are you crazy? She's more dangerous than three men."

    "Three naked men?" Jackson asked with a ghastly grin.

    "Huh?"

    "I threw her out naked. It's at least forty or fifty below out there; she'll freeze up and die in short order. Too short a time for what she deserves, but it'll damn well kill her."

    "You're betting our lives on that." Grisha tried to contain his anger. "What if she doesn't die? They'll know we're here and how to find us."

    "She won't last ten minutes. Nobody could," Scanlon said. "Could they?"

    "We have to send out a patrol," Grisha said, glancing down at his weapon. "Karpov's out there somewhere. I'd hate to get surprised by those bastards."

    "Can't argue with that," Jackson said. "But who would go?"

    "I will," Grisha said.

    "You're really worried that she'll live, aren't you?"

    "Damn right."

    "Then I guess I'd better go with."

    Grisha looked over at Scanlon. "Do you have a watch?"

    "Sure."

    "If we're not back in an hour, get everybody out of here, head north for the Yukon, okay?"

    "Sure, Grisha, whatever you say."

    "Thanks." He pulled his hood up and nodded at Jackson. "Ready?"

    Valari's tracks arrowed toward distant light. Jackson suggested they follow.

    "Sure, but let's do it from about a hundred yards out, say at the edge of those birch, okay?"

    "You Russians are sure a strange bunch," Jackson said.

    "I'm not a Russian," Grisha said tightly, "I'm an Alaskan."

    "What's the difference?"

    "Valari is a Russian." Grisha trudged off through the snow.

    They moved along at a steady pace, fast enough to stay warm but slow enough that they didn't sweat. As they neared the light, a fiercely burning structure almost completely consumed, they slowed.

    "I sure didn't see her back there anywhere," Grisha whispered.

    "How the fuck would you know? We weren't close enough to her trail to see shit."

    "We'd have seen a body."

    "Not if she fell flat, dammit," Jackson hissed.

    "I'm not going to argue with you about this," Grisha whispered sharply. "I think she made it to help and I'm going to get our people out of there."

    "Suit yourself. But I think me and Scanlon will just stay pu-"

    An engine's metallic growl cut through the night. Both men instantly fell to the ground and huddled behind the dubious bulk of a copse of frozen birch. A beam of light sliced above their heads as a halftrack turned from its original path and proceeded down the back of the redoubt.

    "They're following her tracks," Grisha said, allowing his feeling of horror to shade his words.

    "Wonder how many of them there are in that thing?"

    "They'll hold twenty fully armed soldiers."

    "Maybe they're our guys?" Jackson said with an air of supplication.

    "The day your grandmother wears a crown!"

    "Yeah, you're probably right."

    Slowly the halftrack moved along the wall, like a wolf stalking a wounded rabbit.

    "They don't know what to expect," Grisha said suddenly. "She must not have been able to talk to them."

    "I'm amazed she was even able to breathe," Jackson muttered.

    "I told you she was more dangerous than three men."

    "C'mon, let's give these bastards a run for their money." Jackson rose to his feet and checked his weapon. "I'd just as soon die on my feet as freeze to death out here."

    "You're not used to cold, are you?"

    "This isn't just cold, my friend, this is the dark underbelly of frozen hell. How can you people take this year after year?"

    "To be truthful, this is my first winter in the Interior. We never have temperatures this low in Akku."

    "Where I come from, we never have winter. This shit is for the birds."

    "What birds?"

    "Never mind, let's sneak up on those guys and ruin their day."

    They trotted along, keeping pace with the machine grinding along 100 meters away. Suddenly the halftrack stopped and the lights winked out. Grisha and Jackson halted in their tracks, eyes wide and ears straining.

    Dark figures dropped out of a hatch in the back of the darker machine and moved forward. Dull light glinted off a gun barrel. The halftrack lurched and swung out away from the wall, toward the trees.

    Grisha and Jackson dropped. The halftrack spun around and stopped, engine idling. Two figures emerged through the roof, uncovered the heavy machine gun mounted over the cab and trained it on the wall of the redoubt.

    The headlights flared like twin suns to illuminate a twenty meter circle on the stone wall. Exactly in the middle of the eye of radiance sat the door to the bowels of Chena Redoubt.

    "We gotta warn them," Jackson whispered urgently.

    "How? We make one move and those people will kill us."

    The Californian spat in the snow. "Fuck!"

    "Be patient," Grisha said. "We're not defeated. Think of us as a secret weapon, the last thing the Russians will expect is an attack from their rear."

    "Would you be this blasé‚ if it was that Wing chick sitting on the other side of the door instead of Scanlon?"

    "What are you trying to say?"

    "All I'm saying is that I'm as attached to Jimmy Scanlon as you are to Wing, except that I don't particularly want to sleep with Scanlon."

    Grisha pointed his machine-pistol at the Californian's chest.

    "Wait a fuckin' minute!" Jackson whispered harshly. "I know a man with a yen when I see one. I don't care if you don't want to admit it, but I think I made my point, no?"

    "Yes," Grisha said, lowering the weapon. "So what do you want to do?"

    "I want to take out that halftrack, now."

    "Once we shoot them, the others will turn on us and that will be it. Our people inside still won't have a chance."

    "God, you can be dense. Must be from livin' in this stone-age culture up here." Jackson's smile reflected light. "If we capture the fuckin' 'track, we can wipe those other guys out and then we don't hafta walk away from here, we can ride."

    The beauty of it overwhelmed Grisha. "Yeah." Part of his fogged brain wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself.

    Both men moved determinedly toward the back of the halftrack where rapidly condensing engine exhaust clouded the frigid air. They could not have asked for better cover. They crawled through the back of the machine and paused, peering through the hatch at two men facing away from them in the gun tub.

    "We know you are in there," an amplified voice blared English into the night. "If you surrender, you will live."

    "Come on," Grisha said, and stepped into the canvas-covered box and waited with his weapon trained on the two soldiers. A moment later Jackson stood beside him.

    "Shoot when they shoot," Jackson whispered in his ear, "we don't want to draw a lot of attention."

    With a cold knot of fear and determination in the pit of his stomach, Grisha nodded agreement. They sidled forward.

    One of the soldiers said something and the other one nodded. The machine gun fired a burst into the door of the redoubt. Without hesitation, almost in perfect unison, Grisha and Jackson shot the soldiers - ending the burst.

    Their rounds blended into the cacophony of the heavier weapon. One soldier thudded into the wall of the vehicle and slid off the gun platform and down to the floor. The other bounced off the machine gun itself, knocking the muzzle into the air, before he too collapsed on the floor of the box.

    "You have two minutes to surrender," the voice thundered again. "After that we will show as much mercy as you gave Major Kominskiya."

    Grisha and Benny quietly crawled up onto the gun platform. They could see eighteen men ringed around the edge of the light, waiting to charge into the redoubt.

    Jackson examined the machine gun.

    "I know how to operate this," he whispered through a smile.

    "The officer must be inside," Grisha said. "I'll guard the hatch from the cab and shoot anyone who tries to come back here."

    "I really appreciate that, man." Grisha couldn't detect any levity in Jackson's voice.

    Grisha heard a tiny voice and spied a headset on the floor. He picked it up and pressed one of the phones to his ear.

    "-are you doing back there?" snapped a voice in Russian "I ordered you to blow the damned door to flinders!"

    "Sorry, sir," Grisha answered in that language, "I was taking a piss."

    "Who is this?"

    "They want us to shoot," Grisha said.

    "Bitchin'." Jackson fired into the edge of the light. Five Russian soldiers died before the others realized something was amiss. Jackson swung the weapon in an arc, scything down the dumbstruck troopers.

    The hatch on the cab burst open and Grisha sprayed the opening with a long burst. A scream curled up to an impossible octave and stopped. The door remained open. The machine gun ceased its thunder.

    "Come out," Grisha called in Russian. "Or I'll throw in a grenade."

    "D-da!" a strained voice said from the opening. The corporal wasn't wearing his parka, and the growing blossoms of blood soaked the chest of his field jacket. He tried to step toward them, but his legs buckled and he fell in a heap at their feet.

    Grisha rolled him over with his foot. Sightless eyes regarded eternity. Grisha pulled a grenade from his parka.

    Jackson frowned and held up his hand in admonition. Grisha twisted the grenade to show him the pin still intact, then he tossed it into the cab.

    Silence.

    "If there's anyone alive in there, they got more balls than I do," Jackson said fervently.

    Grisha peeked inside, machine-pistol at the ready. A cossack captain lay crumpled on the floor in front of the seat, dead. Grisha straightened up and smiled at Jackson.

    "Let's get our people and get the hell out of here."