Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (28 page)

He was lying. It was obvious. Talley smiled; he wasn’t very good at it. He nodded to Buchmann.

“This officer is not telling the truth, Heinrich. Perhaps you could persuade him to come clean.”

“Ja, ja.”

The huge German stepped forward eagerly, unlocked the cell door, and went inside. With one massive paw, he picked up the Russian by his collar, lifted him off the ground, and held him up in the air. The man struggled to breathe. Buchmann squeezed. His huge hand was like a vice on the Russian’s neck, and the man’s face went bright red as his breath whooshed out of his body. Lack of air caused him to struggle and panic, and his eyes bulged. Talley watched, coldly and dispassionately. If he didn’t get the answers he wanted, his sons would die; it was that simple. Buchmann held the man for half a minute, and then lowered him. As his feet touched the floor, the German smashed his fist into the man’s stomach, and the Russian crumpled into a heap, sucking in air through his bruised throat.

“Where is the Korean?” Heinrich demanded in his fractured, Germanic English. The Russian shook his head.

“He, he…escaped.”

Heinrich picked him up by the throat and propped him against the wall of the cell. Then he hit him again, and as the man doubled over, his huge fist smashed into the Russian’s mouth. Two teeth spilled out and rolled over the rough concrete floor. Talley closed his eyes. There was no choice. It had to be done.

“Where is the Korean, schweinhund? Last chance, next time I’ll hit you in the balls so hard you’ll be singing soprano for the choir of St Basil’s in Red Square. Last chance, Russian. Where is he?”

Talley was about to intervene, sickened by the torture, but before he could speak, the Russian broke.

“Please, don’t hit me any more. I’ll tell you. He went over the border. I let him go about a half hour ago, just before your men jumped me.”

“How much did he pay you?”

A pause. “Five hundred dollars.”

It was probably more like a thousand, but no matter. Talley decided it was time to take over.

“Did he head due south when he crossed the border?”

The man nodded vigorously, desperate to please, anything to prevent further pain.

“Yes, yes. He was walking due south. It is the only road. There is a small town about ten kilometers the other side. He said he could find a telephone there and call for help from his own people.”

He checked his wristwatch.

1945, two hours and fifteen minutes before he’s due to make contact. That’s why he needs the telephone. How far can he get on foot in a half hour? Three kilometers, at the most.

He stared at the officer.

“I need a vehicle, what do you have here?”

“You cannot…” He tailed off, as Buchmann moved toward him. “Yes, there is a four-wheel drive vehicle in the garage behind the border post. Here…” He put his hand in his pocket and held out the keys. Talley took them.

“I’m going after him. Lock these men up.”

He picked up his MP7 and strode out of the office, to find Guy following behind him. “I’m coming with you, Boss. You know where we’re going, back into North Korea?”

“I know, but we took out the border guards both sides of the fence, so I’m not expecting trouble.”

“Trouble and North Korea are inseparable. Let’s go get this bastard while there’s still time to prevent him killing your boys.”

They reached the garage, actually a rotting timber shed. They found the vehicle inside, a military UAZ 469 Jeep type vehicle, or what was left of it. The body sagged down on one side where the springs were long past their replacement date, and both headlights were missing. There was no canvas roof, and the windshield was cracked in two places. There were no wipers, just the metal stubs where someone had stolen them. He put the key in the ignition and tried starting the engine. To his astonishment it started on the first turn. Guy swung into the passenger seat, and they drove away from the Russian border post, heading south along the desolate track that crossed the border into North Korea.

They skirted the bloodied bodies of the Korean guards, sprawled in heaps where they’d left them. Sergeant Park’s body lay to one side, separate from the others, lonely, desolate. Talley resolved to give the man a proper burial if he had the time, but for the guards, they were pawns of a brutal, bloody dictator.

There was no other way for us to escape their slave state. It’s the price those men had to pay for propping up the fat little psycho in Pyongyang, gloating over his delusions of world domination.

He kept his foot hard on the gas pedal, and the ugly SUV bumped and spluttered its way across the inhospitable landscape. Guy hung on grimly, staring out both sides to check for the fugitive Colonel. When they reached the three-kilometer mark, Talley warned him to be extra vigilant.

“He has to be somewhere around here. He can’t have got much further.”

“I’m looking. You know we’re losing the light?”

He’d nodded. It was 2010, and the darkness was beginning to settle over the snowy wastes.

Less than two hours to locate Colonel Ho, and then what? I have to persuade him to talk to the kidnappers. Two young lives are at stake. I’ll offer the Colonel everything to get him to return the boys, and if he won’t play ball? I’ll threaten everything, but they won’t be idle threats. There’s nothing I won’t do to make him cooperate. Nothing.

His head jerked around as Guy shouted.

“There’s a light through the trees. Some kind of a dwelling, a hut maybe.”

 
Talley braked to a halt and stared through the gloom of the trees. He could just make out a forester’s hut, with a faint glow of light shining through the window. There were boot prints in the icy mud where someone had recently walked that way. Ho.

“He would have heard the engine, so he’ll be looking out to see who’s turned up. When he spots us climbing out of this vehicle, he’ll know. We have to take him while it’s still light enough to see.”

“I’ll go around back,” Guy offered. “If he tries to make a break for it, we’ll see his prints in the mud, so he won’t to be too hard to follow. Is he armed?”

Talley considered. Would the Russian have sold him a weapon? The answer was yes. He was the kind of man who’d sell his own mother for money. Besides, selling weapons was common in the Russian military.

“Assume he’s carrying a weapon of some sort, probably a pistol. Let’s go.”

Guy made a wide berth, sprinting through the trees out of sight of the hut to go around the side. Talley waited until he was in position behind the building, then followed Ho’s footsteps. When he was only ten meters away from the door, he stopped and called out.

“Ho! It’s all over. You’re not going any further.”

There was only silence, and the sound of the wind whistling through the pine trees.

“Colonel Ho, come on out! You know I’m not going to kill you, but you have to make that telephone call.”

The door creaked, opening a fraction. He didn’t show his face, but he shouted out through the narrow gap.

“You know the price for your sons’ lives. Nothing has changed. If you don’t hand back the warheads, the boys die.”

“The warheads are gone, Ho. Ditched at sea, so you may as well forget them. Make that call. There’s nothing to be gained by killing my sons.”

He didn’t reply for long moments.

What is the bastard up to?

But Guy was right behind him. If he tried to get away, he wouldn’t get far. Ho shouted again.

“Tell me the coordinates, the place where you ditched the weapons. Give them to me, and your sons may live.”

Shit! The bastard never gives up.

He shouted back, “I don’t have any coordinates.”

Ho laughed. “You’re lying to me. I know they’re not lost. Many years ago, the Americans lost a nuclear weapon in the sea off the coast of Spain, and they retrieved it. Tell me where my warheads are so I can retrieve them, and your boys will live.”

Talley recalled reading about the incident. It was named the Palomares crash, after a nearby Spanish fishing village. In 1966, a B-52G bomber of the USAF Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker off the coast of Spain during mid-air refueling over the Mediterranean Sea. The KC-135 was destroyed when its fuel exploded, killing all four crewmembers. The B-52G broke apart, and three of the seven crewmembers died in the incident, but one of the bombs, a Mk 28 Hydrogen bomb, disappeared into the sea. Plutonium poisoning contaminated the entire area, and the military searched frantically for ten weeks before they located the missing bomb.

That was almost fifty years ago. With modern techniques, and an intensive search, the warheads he jettisoned could be located much faster. He shouted back to Ho, trying to convince the man.

“It’s not going to happen. I’ll give you anything else, anything you want, but one way or the other, you’re coming back with me to make that call.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll…”

He didn’t get any further. The Korean’s voice was cut off by a piercing shriek. Seconds later, Guy emerged from the hut, pushing Ho in front of him. The Colonel had blood running down his face where the former SAS man had clubbed him into semi-consciousness. The Brit had taken no chances. He grinned at Talley.

“What do you want me to do with him?”

“Bring him to the jeep. We need to get back and get him to make that call.”

Guy pushed the Korean into the rear seat of the UAZ and sat alongside him. He screwed his pistol into the Ho’s kidneys, and the squat, ugly Korean shouted out in pain.

“Shut the fuck up,” Guy snarled. “Otherwise I’ll pull the trigger.”

“You’re wasting your time.” Ho snarled. “Until I call my people in America, you have to keep me alive.”

“Just drive, Boss. I’ll deal with him,” Guy interrupted.

He stared at Ho, and in his cruel, hard gaze the Colonel’s future was clear. If the man didn’t cooperate, a world of pain and misery awaited him, ending in a death that would not be pleasant.

“No, Colonel, I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. But if you refuse to cooperate, I’ll shoot you in the kidney, right where this gun barrel is resting. Hurts now, doesn’t it? Imagine what it would be like with a bullet in that kidney. You’ll live, for a few days, but then I’ll shoot you in the other kidney. You’ll do as you’re told, won’t you, Colonel? You won’t make me shoot you in both kidneys?”

The Korean glowered but finally nodded.

“I will cooperate.”

Talley sighed with relief as he kept the UAZ flat out toward the border. They had to cross before the NKs realized their guard force no longer existed and brought up reinforcements. He hurtled along the rough track, fighting to keep the clumsy Russian vehicle from losing control. They reached the unmanned border and drove through without stopping. The bodies were still where he’d left them, and so far there’d been no alarm. He felt a twinge of guilt about Park’s body, lying forlornly in the snow, but there was no time.

Park is dead. My sons are alive, for now.

His men were relaxing in the guard station, and the Russians were safe in their own cell. Alessandra nodded a greeting.

“You got him. Will he play ball?”

“He will. Guy had a chat with him.”

She shuddered.

“Where’s Rovere? Do you know if he managed to sort out the radio?”

“He’s in back. There’s a shack there with some kind of outdated radio equipment. He said it dates all the way back to the Cold War, but it’s still working. When I left him, he was trying to patch it through to a telephone line.”

Talley ran out of the border post, and around back found the shack, a workshop built of stone and timber. He pushed open the door and saw Rovere sitting in front of an electrical monstrosity. It looked like a prop from a science fiction film. The Italian looked up.

“I’m nearly ready for you, Boss. I got through to Admiral Brooks. He’s fixing up the patch, and it’ll be active in a few minutes. He’s also fixing up to get us out of here.”

“How will he do that? The Russians won’t take kindly to a NATO overflight.”

Rovere shook his head. “By boat. There’s a small inlet about six klicks east of here. They’re sending in a RIB to take us off the beach.”