Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (14 page)

Echo Six, that’s the name of his unit.

Even so, it was a pity the well-planned ambush at Irkutsk had failed. He'd no idea of what the NATO unit was doing, or even where they were. But there was no way they could catch up with the train that was for sure. Even so, it would be best to be prepared for anything. He made a mental note to order his men to be doubly on alert when they made their scheduled halt at Chita. It wasn't just the NATO men; there were also the Russians, the so-called Mafiya. They could try to steal the valuable shipment that would make them as rich as Croesus, a shipment that had bankrupted his country to provide the necessary finance. He shivered. The sum was so vast. He knew if anything happened to the warheads, Kim would have his head this time. Literally.

It was time to prepare his men, but unfortunately, their radios had been stored in one of the passenger coaches damaged by rocket and machine gun fire. He suspected Captain Park had forgotten to give the order to secure them somewhere safe before they set the ambush. If so, he'd see the useless officer in his interrogation room back in Pyongyang, something to look forward to. He chuckled again as he thought of what he had prepared for Talley.

Is there anything I haven't thought of? A lot,
he acknowledged.
The high value of the shipment means any number of gangsters and foreign powers could try and steal it, not that common criminals are any match for my troops. If they dare to attack, my men will slaughter them. Perhaps I’m worrying unnecessarily, but even so, why take a chance?

"Driver! Stop the train. I need to speak to my men."

He immediately applied the brakes, and the behemoth began to slow. Ahead of them, there was a spur. The train came to a halt. He climbed down and switched the track over, then pulled ahead onto the spur, leaving the line clear. Finally, he came to a halt, the massive diesel engines throbbing their deep, bass rumble. Abramov looked across at him. "What is it, Colonel? Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just making sure the men are deployed correctly before we reach Chita."

The Chechen nodded his understanding. Ho climbed down to the side of the track and marched back to the first wagon. The goods wagons could only be opened from the outside, and he unbolted the door and shouted for Park to get his men outside. He'd considered leaving the door open, but he knew in the icy subzero temperatures the men would quite likely be so far gone from exposure, they'd be unable to fight. It was a weakness, but he was confident he and the Chechens could run back and open the wagon doors in time to fight off any attack. He couldn't stop himself from smiling as Park was first out of the wagon and came toward him, walking stiffly, as if his limbs were almost completely frozen. Which he had no doubt they were. The men were in no better shape.

Shame.

"We arrive in Chita soon, Captain. Go back down the train and alert the men. Make sure they're ready."

"Ready for what, Colonel? Are you expecting trouble?"

Damned fool!

"Captain, with a shipment of this value, I'm always expecting trouble. I see your men weren't ready to fight when I opened the door. I want every man with his weapon loaded and ready to fire. And you must keep them warm, so they can move fast. Order them to go through a series of calisthenics exercises to keep them alert, and ready for anything. Has not the Leader himself said every soldier should be ready at a moment's notice to defend the Democratic People's Republic of Korea?"

The Captain kept his face straight. He found it impossible to imagine their overweight, pudgy leader performing calisthenics in a frozen boxcar, crossing Siberia. Wisely, he didn't convey his thoughts to the Colonel.

"I'll see to it right away, Sir."

The man ran off down the train to open the doors of the wagons containing their soldiers. Ho reconsidered. Park would have to close and bolt the doors again before returning to his own wagon, and Ho would need to climb back out into the bitter cold to close the door of Park’s wagon once more.

All to keep out a little cold.
Why should I? They’re soldiers.

"Sergeant Tam, when the Captain returns, tell him you are to travel with the wagon door open. It is only a short distance to our destination. As soon as the train stops in Chita, you will run back and open the rest of the wagons immediately; ready to repel an attack, should there be one." He smiled at the NCO. "I know it's cold, man, but it's not too far, and you'll be much better off with the fresh air than stuck inside a closed wagon."

The Sergeant, whose face was still blue with cold, and who was trying desperately to stop his teeth chattering and his limbs from shaking in front of his officer, shouted, "Yes, Sir!"

Ho nodded to him and returned to the warmth of the locomotive cab. Once inside, he ordered the driver to proceed as soon as Captain Park returned to his wagon.

"I can't do that, Sir."

"Can't?" Ho thrust his big brutal face close to the driver, so the man was in no doubt as to his anger if he failed to obey him. "What do you mean, can't?"

"It's the local passenger train that uses this line. It's right behind us. Now that we’ve stopped it’s almost up with us. Another few minutes, and we’ll have to wait until he’s gone past."

"But surely they won't let him onto this stretch of track until we've cleared it?"

"That's the way it should work, sure, but the driver has something of a reputation,” he grimaced. “Vodka, it's always been his downfall. If he's drunk too much, he won't bother to change the signals, and we'll have that passenger train ran right up our backsides."

Ho sighed and climbed back out of the cab, fuming with impatience. He could see Park. The damnable man was only halfway back. He grinned, too bad. He returned to the cab and nodded to the driver. "You may proceed. Get moving, now!”

Before he sat down again, he glanced out the window and chuckled at the sight of Captain Park racing alongside, his arms and legs pumping furiously, trying to find a way to jump aboard and failing. He smiled broadly. It was a long walk to Chita. Maybe it would keep him warm in the Arctic temperatures. At least if he died of exposure, which he almost certainly would, he couldn't betray them. Apart from him, Park and Abramov were the only men who knew where the warheads were stowed. Captain Park would freeze to death alongside the tracks. So he and Abramov were now the only men who knew their location; in a place no one would think to look. And if he decided to kill the arrogant Chechen, the info would be secure with him. Ho allowed himself a satisfied laugh. In matters of state security, death was always the ultimate guarantee of secrecy.

* * *

The open truck was nondescript, much like many others plowing along the track, kicking up snow, mud, and slush as they headed from the airfield into the outskirts of Chita. Talley was in the cab with Alessandra and Phillipov drove. Fortunately, there was insufficient space for Barrington, and he rode in the back, dressed like all of them, in Soviet hand-me-downs; as if they were a work party going to repair a part of the city's ailing services, water, electricity, whatever. Their own uniforms and gear were stowed out of sight in the bed of the truck. The morning looked fine, crisp, and bitterly cold, but with a clear blue sky. The sun made an appearance over the horizon, but if it boosted the temperature, it wasn’t immediately obvious.

"Snow," Josef muttered, sniffing at the air. "It'll be here by the afternoon, maybe the evening. Not much. A meter, perhaps less."

He wondered about the effect a meter of snow would have on the operation.

Will it help us, or hold us back? No matter, it’s just something else to factor in.

Josef bumped over a rough railroad crossing and drove for a kilometer along a narrow track parallel to the lines. He came to a halt in a small grove of trees about two hundred meters from the steel tracks. They saw rusting cranes and machinery standing idle next to a long, low concrete platform. At the end was a huge fuel tank, almost twenty meters long and ten high. Even from this distance, they could smell the fuel leaking from it, diesel for the locomotive. Josef turned to them.

"This is where the train always stops. Sometimes there are goods to load and unload, and the replacement crew will be along shortly, usually a half-hour before the train arrives." He looked around. "But I doubt they'll be loading anything today, they always arrive early. I’d guess we have about an hour before it arrives."

"Understood."

They were still facing a huge problem, and Talley kept worrying at it. The enemy aboard the train vastly outnumbered them. Nothing had changed. The only chance they had of beating them was with more men, Yuri's men, and there was no sign of them. They waited in the freezing snow and watched two men stumble through the snow and onto the platform. They looked drunk. One slipped and fell, and the other stood laughing as he struggled to his feet.

"The replacement crew," Josef explained.

"Not any more," Talley replied. "Wait here."

He climbed out of the truck and fought his way through the snow and up onto the platform, his weapon slung out of sight. The two men glanced at him, clearly railway employees. They were wearing cheap, padded blue uniforms with winter hats, trimmed with fur and pulled down over their ears. He went up to them.

"Good morning."

They looked at him, their faces blank with confusion at the strange language. It made no difference, he had a language that was understood the world over. He unslung his assault rifle and pointed along the track, away from the town.

"Get going. Move!"

One of them unleashed a torrent of Russian abuse at him, and Talley smelled last night's alcohol on his breath, or maybe this morning's.

So he’s probably the driver.

He unslung his MP7 and fired a three-round burst into a nearby snowdrift.

"I said, git!"

They ran, tripping over each other in their haste to get away. If there was one thing the citizens of the new Russia understood, it was the wrong end of an assault rifle. During the Soviet years, everyone feared the KGB, but now the Mafiya ran things, and that fear had grown exponentially. They doubtless took him for a Mafia hood and probably thought he was about to rob the train. No doubt if they'd spoken the same language, they would have offered to help him out for a share of the loot.

He stumbled back through the snow to the truck and climbed into the cab. Josef grinned his approval. And then his earpiece clicked. It was Guy.

"One of our guys says he can hear the train coming, Boss. Still a long way off, but I reckon it's time."

"You got the Strela ready?"

"All done. Toussaint offered to take the shot. He said he’s fired something similar before."

"Roger that. I just hope to Christ he doesn't miss. Okay, people, I guess it's time for the rest of us to become Echo Six again."

They climbed out of the cab and went around the bed of the truck. The men were already stripping off their Russian clothing and changing back into their ballistic vests, helmets, and winter camos. Guy pointed out the positions he’d assigned to them. He’d identified two snow-covered hillocks, enough to withstand the enemy gunfire. There was a small notch to one side of the hillock closest to where the locomotive would stop, and they positioned the Strela right there, ready to take the shot.

Without Yuri's Mafiya soldiers, Talley had elected to keep them together and assault just the front of the train. He didn't have enough men to split them into two groups. Instead, he assigned them into five fireteams, each working closely with the others. The job of the two fireteams nearest the front was to bring all of their fire onto the defenders. He stayed with the middle fireteam, defending the Strela position, together with Alessandra and Josef. The other two fireteams were deployed further back where they could lend their fire to the main assault, but could also hold off any enemy troops who came up from the rear. It wasn't an ideal position, but with so few men against so many, it was all he could do.

He lay in the snow, measuring angles, checking, and rechecking. Satisfied their positions were optimum, he waited, watching the bleak, desolate station. It was little more than a concrete ramp and a rusting diesel tank. Only the snow allowed some relief to the shabby structures, and he reflected when the thaw came, it would lay bare the abject poverty that was a tarnished legacy of Communism. The wait seemed endless, but it was only five minutes.

The faint sound of the huge diesel engine became a throaty roar, and the brightly painted locomotive rolled into sight, appearing from out of a long bend, its iron brakes starting to squeal as it slowed for the refueling stop. Closer, slower, the locomotive was adjacent to them, and then it gently nosed further along, so the wagons were aligned with the platform for convenience of loading and unloading. The engine noise died away until it was just a gentle tick over. The door of the locomotive opened, and a man stepped out. A Russian, not a Korean, but too well dressed to be the driver. It had to be the Chechen leader.