The Siberian Incident 2 Read online

  “Do you know what is going to happen if you call in fighter jets and an infantry unit on this? We’ll be a laughing stock. It will be said that the idiots running the yeti project messed it up again, and this time we sent millions of dollars worth of hardware in to save them. We’ll lose our funding, and you’ll go back to pushing pencils in St. Petersburg. Maybe that’s what you want?” Colin said, growing more animated as his sentence continued.

  “Those two cannot escape, and you are a bigger imbecile than I thought you were if you believed their story about being skiers! What is wrong with you? Are all Americans so dense?” Roskovski shouted, “How does this thing work?” Roskovski asked, picking up a microphone that was plugged into a radio on the wall. Roskovski looked on a piece of paper taped to the wall and tuned the frequency for the 3rd Air and Air Defence Forces Command,” He began speaking into the mic.

  Colin unplugged the microphone and attempted to grab it from Roskovski.

  “Don’t do this!” he warned.

  “Give that back, American! I can only think that you’re a mole if you won’t allow me to make this call. What is your reason for protecting these men?” Roskovski demanded.

  “Because I don’t need the spotlight shined on this project!” Colin shouted, “We have enough problems with the Federal Assembly on this. They’ll abandon the project, and where would that leave us?”

  “In a lot better place than if your American friends get away,” the lieutenant growled.

  “I’ll go after them, just stay here,” Colin yelled, the shouting hurting his already throbbing head.

  He smashed the microphone on the floor and headed out the door. He made his way through the hallway and entered the garage where the fluorescent lights were flickering and much dimmer than usual. Some had been broken, and white dust and glass lay on the floor. In the flickering light, he noticed that something had sprayed the blood all over the walls. The remnants of their eviscerated corpse dripped down from the ceiling and walls in chunky bits.

  Two snowmobiles were missing, so Colin assumed that the unidentifiable person who had been slaughtered was not Maddock or Scott. Someone had also taken a paratrooper’s version of the RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, which probably fit nicely in the storage compartment attached to the backs of the sleds.

  He fired up one of the Tajga 500’s remaining. The headlight of the snowmobile illuminated the light falling snow outside of the garage. He donned a full-face helmet hanging on the wall. Waiting only minimal time for the sled to warm up, Colin pulled out into the frigid night air.

  He proceeded slowly at first, seeing fresh snowmobile tracks that were maybe only 10-15 minutes old, considering the falling snow. They moved in single file. Scott was either following his uncle or vice versa. Sporadically along the trail, he noticed massive footprints and then more. At first, he wondered if it were a coincidence. Then he realized they acted intentionally, the idiots were following the Magadan yetis.

  Colin gunned the engine of the Tajga 500, he needed to catch Scott and Maddock before they found the Magadan yetis, a mistake they’d never live to regret.

  Back inside, Lieutenant Roskovski rummaged through drawers and opened cabinets in the radio room. There had to be one here somewhere. When he thought he’d exhausted all options and looked everywhere, he found, in a box he’d previously overlooked, a microphone that connected to the radio board. Plugging it in, he made a call on frequency 125.925.

  “Aurora 330, Agate 11, request assistance at outpost Tundra 02,” the lieutenant said, clicking the button on the microphone.

  A short snap of static proceeded a long silence. Just as the lieutenant was about to repeat his request, a voice came over the radio in response.

  “Agate 11, Aurora 330, confirm you want assistance at Tundra 02?”

  “Yes, affirmative.”

  “Agate 11, confirm you are not requesting emergency medical personnel. Confirm that you realize you are calling the full assault team of this unit, we will send helicopters, fighters, and armed personnel to your position. Does your circumstance warrant this response?”

  “Affirmative!” Roskovski was now shouting into the microphone.

  “Confirmed Agate 11, Aurora 330 is en route to your location with a full response team.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Mole

  SANDY MAGDALENA HAD not heard from Scott Brockman in over an hour, and now the countdown on the one chance she had to extract the small team she’d sent to Russia was under two hours. They’d have one chance to get Scott and his uncle out. After that, they’d be on their own with no way out of Northern Siberia.

  Scott had been a promising agent. He was smart and had been successful on all of the missions he’d been deployed to thus far. Those missions had intelligence and counterintelligence collection objectives, and none required the kind of skills he now needed. If this mission had been a routine mission with similar goals, she’d have sent a paramilitary operations officer. This was no regular objective, however. A retired special forces soldier who happened to be her agent’s uncle was the best she could do. This mission had barely been approved, and if it failed, it would have detrimental effects on her career. If it succeeded, it would bring down a dangerous ally of the Russian Federation. A close friend of the Russian President, Colin Crossfield, an American billionaire who had just barely escaped prosecution for colluding with Russia in 2014.

  The high command was reluctant to bring further charges against Crossfield as his acquittal was a colossal embarrassment to the intelligence community. It had made Crossfield more popular and created bad press for the US Government and those who had brought the charges. The Senator who headed the hearings had been voted out in 2016. Then, even when there was clear evidence that Crossfield was going beyond what he’d previously been doing, there was no one to take up the torch and bring charges against him.

  What’s more, the things he was involved in sounded so ridiculous that it was hard to even have someone listen to what he was accused of with a straight face. There was mention of biohacking, creating super-soldiers, and a mysterious species of hominid that could only be described as a Sasquatch. When they lived in Asia, they were called yetis, she’d learned after making that mistake with a so-called “expert” in these cryptozoological creatures. That catastrophe nearly got her a demotion. The “expert” turned out to be a whack job who then touted that he was a “government consultant” on the creatures when he was interviewed by several reality television shows on the subject.

  Now the agency had sent Collins and Frederick, two cynical and condescending misogynists. They were here only to cast doubt on her choices and mansplain to her about department procedures. They seemed determined to make her fail and gleeful at the prospect.

  The two had gone out for dinner together, and she heard them in the hallway, making jokes and laughing loudly. As they entered the board room, they both cleared their throats and ceased talking, putting on their straight faces. Whatever it was that had entertained them was obviously not something they wanted to share with her.

  “Agent Magdalena, do we have contact with the element?” Fredrick said Agent Magdalena could see that he eagerly anticipated a negative answer.

  “Not as of 2000 hours,” she answered.

  “So, no change since we left?” Collins said, barely able to hide a slight smile.

  “That’s correct,” Magdalena said solemnly.

  The two flopped into the boardroom chairs, they both stunk of tequila and Magdalena could smell it from the front of the room. 2 for 1 margaritas were on special at Los Mexcales, a Mexican restaurant only a block away. They were known for their fast service and strong drinks, and Magdalena knew that Collins and Frederick had not split the 2 for 1 deal.

  “Is Agent Garrett enroute?” Frederick now asked.

  “Yes,” Magdalena responded.

  “Well, I don’t have to explain to you that if he does not contact the team at the extraction point, we will not
be able to wait for them. Your team has to be at the extraction point at 2200 hours.”

  “I understand that Agent, they will be there,” Magdalena responded, becoming red with rage.

  “Well, we can’t let that happen,” Collins said.

  Frederick laughed, “Don’t be so blatant about it, Ted,” he said, referring to Collins by his first name.

  Collins' face remained straight as he reached into his blazer and pulled out a Ruger LC9 sub-compact handgun. Upon seeing the gun, Agent Magdalena dove under the table as Collins shot Frederick in the face.

  Magdalena reached for her own subcompact Glock 26 9mm stored in a holster in the small of her back. Her right arm was slightly pinned underneath her, making it more difficult to draw the handgun.

  She saw Collins stand, and she sommarsaulted as two bullets flew underneath the table. He fired wildly and blindly. Magdalena fired as she rolled, attempting to lay down suppressive fire to keep Collins from aiming and to make her way to the door.

  She popped up from beneath the table and fired two shots that hit the wall, then jumped on the table as bullets flew from underneath it. Magdalena flipped off the table as Collins appeared from beneath it and fired three shots into the large flat-screen TV hanging at the front of the board room. As Magdalena aimed at Collins, she saw that her magazine was empty. Her heart nearly stopped until she saw Collins fiddling with his gun, attempting to reload. Magdelena ran toward him and kicked him in the chest, sending him reeling backward, his pistol and his magazine skittering to opposite ends of the room.

  Collins stood grabbing his chest, he lifted his hands in a fighting stance that recalled a 30’s boxer. By his posture and the look on his face, Magdalena knew that he could not fight. She, on the other hand, was a second-degree black belt and had spent the majority of her youth winning karate tournaments in Eastern Wisconsin where she’d grown up. Magdelena had aced the agency’s self-defense training as a specialty. She wasn’t sure what Collins specialty was, but it definitely wasn’t in self-defense.

  Collins had his hands up and was about to say something when Magdalena delivered a devastating sidekick to his stomach. The slight bald man, let out a sound that was less human and more like an airbag exploding. He fell to the ground clutching his stomach.

  Magdalena was a striker and not particularly adept at strangleholds. Still, she quickly clamped her arms around the weak bureaucrat’s neck. He grabbed her with his pencil-thin arms, and his pale, sweaty face began to redden.

  “What is going on, Collins?” Magdalena growled into his ear.

  He was struggling to breathe and could not speak, so she loosened her grip. He’d realized that the struggling with his arms only made him tired and had given up.

  “Just let me go, and I’ll cut you in, Dimitry Strovenyevich is paying me well, there’s plenty to go around. Crossfield dies, and these two just disappear. Everyone wins!” Collins croaked.

  “Are you trying to bribe me, you sniveling creep? After you tried to kill me? You killed a federal agent,” Magdalena said, pointing at Franklin, “you are going to jail.”

  Collins again struggled, and Magdalena tightened her grip. She could never apply the rear choke correctly. Her karate instructor had been a little weird, and she never liked practicing chokes with him. Regretfully, her life now depended on it. She could feel his heart beating too fast for a man his age, and he belched up the stench of tequila and pork carnitas. She concentrated on cutting off Collins’ blood supply by flexing her arm and turning her forearm into his carotid arteries. Her elbow joint prevented her from crushing his windpipe, and she couldn’t maneuver to do it. Collins, for as weak as he was, was slippery and slick with sweat, he somehow twisted his head out of her grasp and attempted to stand.

  Magdalena kicked him again in the side from the ground as he dove for his gun, he bounced off the wall, groaning in pain again. She kipped up to her feet and saw Collins furiously grasping at his ankle. Before she could reach him, he’d drawn a knife and swatted it at her.

  “What’s wrong, Magdalena? Don’t want to be rich or something? Well, I do, you’re just going to have to join Franklin the messy way,” Collins paused to glance at Franklin’s spray of blood and brains on the wall, “Well, the more intimate way, I should say, cause that was pretty messy too.”

  Collins circled to her left, holding the small black blade in his hands. It was a folding knife, and the back of the blade was serrated. Not a big knife, but it would kill her just as quickly as a bullet. She moved toward the gun’s magazine, then kicked it into the air. As Collins lunged at her, she dove and grabbed it before rolling to the Ruger handgun. Off-balance, Collins ran into the table, as he turned Magdalena popped the magazine into the empty pistol and pulled the action back. She had no time to fumble with the safety as Collins lunged at her again. She depressed the trigger for what seemed like an inordinately long pull but finally felt the recoil of the small 9mm.

  She held up her arm as Collins’ slight body fell on her, the knife sliced into her arm and stuck, but Collins’ was no longer hanging onto it, she felt him writhe on top of her before becoming still. She threw his limp body off of her and saw that the 9mm bullet had gone right through his heart.

  She turned her arm and looked at the knife. She knew it was a bad idea to pull it out. She wouldn’t be able to go to a hospital and would need to wait for help.

  Dialing the Polycom on the table, with blood running down from the knife sticking out of her arm, she reached Langley’s special line, the operator asked for her callsign and her emergency.

  “This is Agent Magdalena, codename Ladyhawk, I need a cleaner and a medic at IRS office #47652.”

  “Standby Agent Magdalena, help is on its way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Outside Magadan Cave

  DEEP IN THE Siberian forest, Scott and Maddock had turned off their machines and now followed the yetis on foot. Trudging through the deep snow, Maddock took the lead, holding the Savage 99 in his hands with his M4 at his side. He held up a fist and stopped. Turning back to Scott, he had a look of concern.

  "Do you hear that?" Maddock asked.

  "Yeah, another snowmobile?" Scott answered.

  Maddock nodded. As they looked in the direction of the sound, they saw a faint light flickering in the darkness, it was the same high-temperature halogen beam as their Tajga 500 snowmobiles. They waited scanning behind them as it approached.

  Maddock and Scott ducked behind trees as the snowmobile came into view on the trail. It cut power about 100 yards ahead of their sleds, and the figure who rode it began slogging through the deep snow in their tracks. He was armed with an AK-74M rifle, which he held in his hands and had two hand grenades hanging from a belt around his chest. To Maddock, he looked like some winter warfare cosplayer.

  Maddock drew a heavy Mag-Lite from his belt and turned its beam on the figure. When illuminated, he saw that the person wore the same green parka that Colin had on the last time they had seen him.

  "Colin?" Maddock shouted at the person who now held his hands up.

  "Yeah," Colin said in a half-whisper.

  "You'd better turn around and go right back to your base or lair or whatever that is you have back there," Maddock warned, "Unless you want a .300 Savage in your chest or another ass whipping."

  "No, I don't want either of those things, but I think you guys are going into that cave for some reason. I want two things, one to stop you from doing that for your own good and two to make a deal."

  "We're going in Colin," Scott replied.

  "Ok, bad idea, but if you are, then you really need me," Colin said.

  "Why's that?" Scott again spoke.

  "Because I'll make sure you don't die. You guys need one of them for research or something? I can get you one, just one condition," Colin answered.

  "The Snow Yeti Goddess is their captive. We're here to get her out and return her to her tribe, we don't want one of your genetically engineered abominations," Scott replied.
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  "You what?" Colin said in disbelief, "That's fucking stupid, those queens are always getting captured and killed by our militarized yetis. It's like a test we put them through. The Snow Yetis are on their way to becoming extinct, you can't save them."

  "Well, can save a few of them, and we can make you extinct," Scott snarled.

  "That's less clever than you think," Colin said, now putting his rifle at his side, "Look, you really need me, and I want to propose a deal."

  "What do you want?" Maddock said, the Savage 99 still trained on his nephew's chest.

  "Immunity, Maddock, you must belong to some organization. Not sure if it is the CIA or NSA, but I want your employer to guarantee me immunity and protection. In return, I'll help you with this and give up everything I know to the US Government."

  "You want to act like an American again? Russia not treating you well?"

  "No, this project is going nowhere, and after a decade and a half in Russia. I haven't made any money while Bezos and Musk are worth forty times what I am. In the 90's I made them look like paupers. America is where the real money is, and I'm tired of spinning my wheels."

  "Yeah, you're not even a billionaire anymore Colin,. Chasing this immortality dream you have has been disastrous to your finances," Scott said.

  "How would you know? I am, in fact, still a billionaire," Colin exclaimed.