The Siberian Incident 2 Page 9

  It was strange, Maddock never thought twice about leaving Sasha’s body in pieces in the snow. He’d just been aloof and rude. The cat had attempted to kill them. Still, the hunter in him didn’t like to kill and not harvest the skin and meat of the animal.

  In contrast to himself, Maddock could tell that Sasha's death may have bothered Scott. He tried to talk to his nephew and get his mind off the horrid gore he’d just witnessed.

  “Scott,” Maddock said directly to Scott, the trail was wide enough that they could ski side-by-side, something they would not have typically done. Still, Maddock wanted to make time and communicate.

  “Yeah,” Scott said stoically.

  “Ever see someone die like that before?” Maddock asked.

  “Torn apart by a cryptozoological animal? No,” Scott said, still emotionless.

  “Look, I’ve seen some things, I think it helps to talk afterward. Not about that, let’s just have a conversation here. Look, I don’t know a lot about you, actually. We gotta trust each other with our lives, and I don’t even know your favorite band or your favorite food. I wasn’t sure what was going on when you invited me here. I really thought you probably were trying to make me a substitute for Mason.”

  “No one is going to replace my grandpa Maddock,” Scott replied.

  “No, I get that wasn’t the point now. Maybe you just needed a mercenary, and I was the only one you could get to go on this mission. I don’t know, but I want to let you know that no matter what happens, I appreciate this.”

  “What?” Scott said, turning his head toward Maddock as he continued to kick his skis through the snow.

  “No, I do, maybe you’re feeling stupid for getting yourself into this, maybe you feel guilty for getting me into this, you don’t need to. I wanted this.”

  “You wanted to attacked in the middle of the night by yetis then watch someone get their arms torn off them off like Chewbacca does?”

  “I never watched Star Trek, Scott, and no, but this adversity, this challenge is what was missing for me, I needed this. What were you looking for coming here?”

  “I don’t know, I guess I had to see for myself if my grandpa was just insane or what. I needed to prove Colin wrong, I needed to prove what he did to my grandpa. This was the only way to do that. Even you thought he was nuts, but I had that fur, and when it came back, and it wasn’t a polar bear, or a gorilla or a dyed synthetic fiber like everyone said it would be, I thought there was just a small chance that he was telling the truth. Now I know he was, but I killed someone proving it, and knowing that I’m now less thrilled about the parameters of the mission.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, the objectives of this mission…I guess this would be a lot easier if we found nothing here. That’s what I expected. Even though we had the fur, I could have dismissed it as, something Colin planted or something.”

  “Ok. Wow, you loved my brother a lot, I really respect that Scott. Mason was pretty important to you, huh?”

  “I mean, my dad was the guy who taught me to be what I am. Instilled the work ethic, kept me level headed when my head got too big. He taught me important lessons, and he had the hard job of being a dad. My grandpa, though, yeah, we had a great relationship. My dad doesn’t know anything about computers. My grandpa taught me all about them, which was important when it came to accounting in high school and college. My dad worked at Chrysler all of his life, blue-collar, union work, and my grandpa was white-collar, worked in an office, and went places for his job. I saw my dad march off to a job at a place that wasn’t fun to work every day. My grandpa took me to work, and there was hot chocolate while he had coffee, and they worked on computers and had spreadsheets, and it seemed easier to make your paycheck. Both of them were important to me, growing up. Both of them had a lot to do with what I became, and when I’d go see my grandpa in the memory care facility, it seemed like he didn’t belong there. He wasn’t like the other people there who couldn’t recognize their own sons and daughters. He knew who I was the whole time. His stories seemed unbelievable, and yeah, he forgot some things sometimes. Still, he was there mainly because Colin accused him of threatening him,” Scott said through breaths as the two men moved at a quick pace through the woods.

  “What was your relationship with Colin? You knew him, right? I mean, you were at his Christmas and 4th of July things a few times that I remember.”

  “Yeah, but he was a lot older than me. We were never peers, he gave me a ride in his jet once when my mom, Mason, and I went to California with him for the day. I guess at one point I did idolize him. I was always proud to say that he was my mom’s cousin when I was in school, but we didn’t do a lot with him or see him very often. It isn’t like he was really generous to the family. I’m not bitter or jealous or anything. It’s fine, but for all his billions, the rest of us live pretty normal lives, you know? I’ve never asked him for anything, and maybe he’d be different if he thought I needed something, but my parents and I paid for my college. I scraped to put together enough money for my first house. I guess he bought a house for Elaine and he’s nice to his parents. That was one thing I couldn’t figure out why he took my grandpa on that trip when he’d always just ignored everyone but Tom and Elaine.”

  “Yeah, I think I got a Bulova watch from him from Christmas once, that was pretty nice. I can’t really blame Colin. A good way to go from a billionaire to broke is by handing out money to your family. I heard him say that the Sanders guy who committed suicide. You know, the one they think programmed the algorithm for that compression software. They thought he had given a lot of money to his family. He died bankrupt, so I don’t know. I never went looking for anything from Colin. I don’t know what his deal with Mason was. For a while, they were very close, and it culminated in that trip. Like I said, they were maybe just too much alike,” Maddock related.

  “You don’t seem to have the highest opinion of my grandpa,” Scott said, his breath visible as clouds of red in Mason’s thermal goggles.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to insult him. I know he meant a lot to you,” Maddock said

  “No, don’t whitewash it. Yeah, I held the man in high esteem, sometimes that doesn’t allow you to see the whole person or any of his faults. I thought my grandpa walked on water, I know no one does that. How did you guys get along?” Scott asked.

  “My brother and I have a complex relationship,” Maddock said, “I loved him dearly, he was always important to me, but he could be a real sonofabitch, no offense to our mother. He talked to me a few times about Colin and his concerns with him. Colin was in martial arts, and he beat up some kid in a competition or something, and that really bothered Mason. Mason forgot that I had to pull him off of Soupey Paulsen one time, or he’d have killed him. He’d boned Diane or something, and Mason didn’t appreciate it.”

  “Yo, Maddock we’re talking about my grandma, my current grandma who is still alive, don’t need the details about her getting ‘boned.’” Scott said with a grimace on his face.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, Mason had that problem. He liked to present a side of himself that was different from what he was really like, and sometimes he liked to disparage anyone he saw as a rival. That included me. Grandpa Charles thought I was a no-good dirtball when I was a three-sport athlete. I had the grades to get into college, but I wanted to serve the country, I thought he’d be proud of it. The day I graduated, I left for basic training, and all Charles saw was a kid who didn’t want to go to college. Mason kind of moved in there and quickly became Charles' favorite. Pretty sure that’s why Charles hocked the Savage 99 to pay for Mason’s tuition to WMU. He just didn’t want me to have it. He wanted to punish me for not doing what he wanted me to do. Grandpa Charles, there’s a whole nother story.”

  “I never heard that story. My grandpa did tend to present himself rather angelically. You’re not the first person I have met that had negative things to say. I just brushed them off or got kind of offended when people wan
ted to tell me anything that contrasted with the version of my grandpa I wanted to believe in.”

  “Well, Mason could be incredibly generous and friendly too. He was not a simple man. He definitely cared for you and loved you. You should have heard the way he talked about you. A few times, I said to myself, ‘Could he just shut up about this kid once?’ I never thought I’d be skiing next to you in Siberia after being attacked by yetis, or I’d have listened more closely.”

  Scott laughed and said, “It’s Post Malone and Bilbo’s pizza, by the way.”

  “What’s that?” Maddock asked, perplexed.

  “Like an hour ago, you asked my favorite music and my favorite food. I know your favorite band, Uriah Heep, what’s your favorite food?”

  “Oh yeah. You’re right about the band, food? Probably pizza too. Bilbo’s that’s that Lord of the Rings pizza place in Kalamazoo? It’s got the big tree in it?”

  “That’s it, that’s my favorite.”

  “Yeah, I like that place too. Who are Post Malone? Do they sing anything I’d know?”

  “Post Malone isn’t a band, it’s a guy.”

  “Oh, like Ozzy? Who is in his band?” Maddock wondered.

  “No one, just himself, I mean he does cameos with other artists and stuff but…”

  “Well, who plays all the instruments?” Maddock said, again perplexed.

  “He does, well, he arranges the songs in a computer, I think he plays the guitar, but he just arranges the music on a laptop,” Scott explained.

  “Does he just have this laptop onstage with him at his concerts?”

  “At his concerts, it's just him standing up there with a microphone,” Scott again explained.

  “Oh,” Maddock said, trying to grasp how this would work.

  “Yeah, check him out on YouTube, expand your horizons beyond Uriah Heep,” Scott told Maddock.

  “You check out Uriah Heep, you might learn to like them.”

  “I do like Uriah Heep. Easy Livin’, and you’ve been forgiven since you’ve taken your place in my heart.”

  “It’s I’ve been forgiven, but close enough.”

  “Yeah, so check out Post Malone. I listen to a bunch of your 80’s music.”

  “Uriah Heep is 70’s.”

  “And Chewbacca is from Star Wars. Alright, I’ll get you some Bilbo’s Pizza if we get out of here. Eyes up, I see the lights ahead. Go IR now.”

  “Maddock switched his goggles, and the green glow of the IR lenses replaced the colorful heat signatures of the thermal lenses. Scott skied off the path and through some trees, not wanting to directly approach the facility.

  The swishing sound of Scott’s skis was now the only sound Maddock heard as he scanned the forest for more threats. Another animal was one thing. As they got closer to the facility, human guards were the threat that Maddock feared most.

  He began to see smoke rising into the sky. It was the facility. The sky was black, and the air was cold, Maddock dug in his poles and tucked slightly as both men coasted down a hill. Snow plowed up around the tips of his skis and kicked out behind him as he once again planted the poles and pushed off to keep his momentum down the hill. He followed in Scott’s tracks as the younger man turned to avoid a pile of brush that blocked the straightest path and rounded a corner in the road.

  The path led toward an actual road that had been plowed. Scott held up his hand to indicate that Maddock should stop. Maddock saw Scott undoing the bindings of his skis. They helped each other affix their skis to their packs. Maddock followed suit, and the two crouched as they continued looking through the different spectrums at the world around them. Scott then raised his goggles. The floodlights attached to the building ahead of them gave off ample light to see in the forest. Maddock scanned for sentries and then raised his goggles as well.

  “That’s it up ahead,” Scott said as Maddock looked toward the nondescript rectangular steel building. Roughly 1/3 of the top of the building was painted black, and the remainder to the ground was a steel gray color.

  This was precisely as they’d planned. Everything looked like it had been in the maps and schematics they’d studied in Alaska. Maddock noticed steam rising from Scott’s parka, and then he saw that he himself was steaming from the sweat pouring out of his skin. He knew they’d need to get into the facility soon if they wanted to live. The temperature was well below zero, and Maddock felt a moderate wind coming from the south that was already beginning to send chills through his thick winter gear.

  They stayed out of sight of a security camera that panned to the left, allowing them to duck into the woods and wait until it panned back to the right before they moved on.

  They arrived at a snowbank that overlooked a back entrance door, and Scott activated his throat mic.

  “Ladyhawk 1, this is Badger 4, we are at the waypoint,” Scott said.

  “ Badger 4, this is Ladyhawk 1, we have you, beware surveillance drones are flying near your area, suggest you remain in your present position while we deploy countermeasures,” a female voice replied in Scott and Maddock’s earpieces.

  “Who is that?” Maddock asked.

  “That’s Agent Sandy Magdalena, she’s supposed to be the CFO of Culbert and Swenson, but really she is the mission coordinator. I’d be dead without her,” Scott remarked.

  “Where’s she been this whole time?”

  “We’d have risked giving ourselves away before, we had to be radio silent until now,” Scott explained.

  “Ok,” Maddock said, remembering the extensive rules of engagement on every one of his missions. Quiet on comms until the last possible second was one of the less stupid things he’d been asked to do. He brushed it off and continued his thought, “Drones? Where are those things?”

  “Above us, be quiet, you’ll hear their blades, they are using small commercially available DJI drones for surveillance here. Colin can’t import FLIR or so they have been patrolling with only night vision. If they had thermal, we’d already be dead. Remain still, and we won’t be seen.”

  “You trusted that they hadn’t smuggled some FLIR cameras in the meantime?” Maddock said, referring to the brand name of the thermal imaging system in their goggles.

  Overhead, Maddock heard the screech of an owl followed by the smash of a drone against the building. Another shriek and another small white drone fell from the sky.

  “What was that?” Maddock asked.

  “Birds, if we shot those drones out of the sky there, every guard would be on high alert. An owl takes the drones out, they just think some bird is pissed off that they’re flying around their territory.”

  Maddock watched as the door opened, and a man in Russian military garb exited the building and looked at the smashed plastic drone in the back lot of the facility. Maddock’s heart rate increased, seeing an actual human adversary. The man picked up a piece of the drone and examined it. Another man opened the back door.

  “Şova per’ya, yuhbat yego konnem!” The man yelled into the night.

  “He said ‘fuck’ what else did he say?” Maddock asked.

  “He said, ‘Owl feathers, fuck!’” Scott whispered, “Actually, he said…”

  “Let the horse fuck it. Yeah, I know that one,” Maddock said. It was a common curse in Russian.

  The door slammed shut, the man still outside picked up the pieces of the drone and then punched in a code and returned into the building.

  “Drones eliminated,” Agent Magdalena's voice came over the earpiece.

  “Where did the owl come from?” Maddock asked.

  “I don’t know, I don’t ask, not my job. Magdalena's job is to figure out how to get an owl here, ours is to get in that building.”

  “Affirmative Ladyhawk 1 oscar mike,” Scott said, indicating that he and Maddock were now moving.

  “Ladyhawk 1, Badger 4 affirmative. Another element deployed the owl this morning, it’s been waiting to kill drones all day. It will probably kill more of them until it flies off to another hunting ground. Just
to answer Maddock’s question,” Agent Magdalena explained.

  “There you go, she even explains your dumb questions, isn’t she great?” Scott said as he moved across the back lot toward the door.

  “Thanks, Scott, the backdoor code is 4436, confirmed by watching the sentry who just went back in,” Magdalena said through the earpiece.

  Scott and Maddock stacked up on the door. Maddock pointed his gun at the entrance as Scott punched in the code and swung the door open. Maddock saw nothing but a hallway bathed in fluorescent light as he entered the building.

  Scott moved in immediately behind him, holding his M4 in one hand and slowly and quietly closing the door with the other, being careful not to slam the skis jutting from his back on the door frame.

  “Badger 4, confirmed entry,” Scott said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Facility

  MADDOCK IMMEDIATELY FELT relief from the cold as he stepped into the sterile surroundings of the building.

  "How did they see what he punched in?" Maddock whispered, scanning the room through his scope for sentries.

  "Clear skies, our satellite picked it up. You have two sentries in that building according to our thermal map. The wifi heart rate sensor attached to Scott's M4 confirms that. We have those guys outside in the front, they've been distracted by the downed drones, they're looking up into the sky," Agent Magdalena answered through the earpiece.

  "This is a lot different than my last mission. You have a heart rate sensor that detects people?" Maddock again whispered as he and Scott moved through the entry room.

  "Yeah, it works using wifi, detects the electric pulses of someone's heartbeat."

  "How did it take you guys 11 years to find Bin Laden with all of this stuff?" Maddock asked, neither Scott nor Agent Magdalena answered him.

  "Ok, they are coming back in," Magdalena remarked.