Foreign Enemies and Traitors (39 page)

If the Cossack continued beyond the Subaru’s hiding place, even without NVGs he’d be bound to notice the two fresh tire tracks in the snow.  The car had compressed the four inches of white powder down to a slippery hard-packed crust.  Even in the last moonlight that filtered through the clouds the parallel tracks would be noticeable.  He might even feel the compressed tracks with his feet, and then examine them further with a flashlight.  When the soldier eventually found his unit, he would report the fresh tracks, and his comrades would easily be able to follow their trail straight back to the car’s hiding place.

All of these thoughts ran through his mind in the time it took the soldier to walk to within twenty feet of Boone’s bare maple tree.  He slowly revolved around the thick trunk, keeping it between the two of them, until the soldier passed by and walked onward.  There was no way to alert the other three men by the car.  He looked back toward the hollies and could see the side glow of Doug’s dim flashlight.  Even without night vision, this straggler would see the light in a few moments. 

When the soldier was just a few yards past him, Boone silently drew the Randall knife from its sheath.  The blanket of snow would silence his footsteps.  The enemy soldier was not stopping to listen and look around, but was marching at a steady pace. 

Boone stepped from behind the maple and began taking long but stealthy strides forward.  He matched his steps to the enemy soldier’s pace, further hiding any slight sound of his approach.  An unwanted memory from Afghanistan invaded his mind: hot arterial blood gushing from the throat of a Taliban sentry.  He steeled himself mentally to do the deed.  In the last meter, slam him from behind with a hip while the left hand wraps around the face and pulls the head back sharply.  Then the blade goes around in a flash, and with one deep backslash it will be done, his carotid and his windpipe severed.  The man will be too shocked and have too little time left alive even to make a shout.  Then he will be dead in the snow where he drops.

Only six feet separated them now.  Boone’s steps matched the lost straggler’s in cadence, but each of his steps was a little longer.  Covering more distance, gaining ground, a few inches closer with each stride.  Knife held in the right hand, the left hand up and a little forward for the head grab.  A few more steps, a few more seconds to contact, and it’s throat-cutting time—again.

****

Jenny had to walk ever more slowly,
because of the diminishing moonlight.  Her pupils were already dilated to their maximum, only the white snow was still faintly visible.  Trees around her dissolved into blacker obscurity and then disappeared altogether.  She put out her left hand, to keep from walking directly into an unseen trunk.  She set each foot down carefully, lest she put her weight down on a hole or trip across a root or a rock.  She knew she must try to find a stick or a pole, to probe ahead of her like a blind person.  Part of her wanted to simply draw her pistol and turn on its light, but it was one of those super-bright police lights, and anybody within a mile might see it.  She wished she had an ordinary small flashlight, just enough to faintly illuminate her path a few steps ahead.

For all she knew, there might be one in the pack on her back, but she had departed the old woman’s trailer in too much haste to inspect its contents.  Perhaps she could jury rig a filter for the gun’s light?  A glove perhaps?  For now, a blind man’s stick would have to do.  When she ineitably walked into some bushes, she would break one off by feel and strip off its leaves.  If she wandered into very thick cover, she’d use the gun light to explore the rest of her backpack, and search it for a weaker light.  Or she’d try to rig a filter over the gun light.  At least the baby was sleeping warm against her chest, resting in the hollow pouch between her pack’s straps, where the pistol belt pinched in the dead man’s big parka.  Every few minutes she had to pull down the front of the parka beneath the belt; otherwise, the baby was no real bother to her.  Pregnant mothers carry a baby for nine months, she thought.  I can carry one for a day or two.

                                          
       12

Boone was half a head taller than the enemy he was stalking.
  The unlucky Cossack had no idea he was being followed by a hardened killer with a razor-sharp Randall fighting knife in his hand.  According to his father, the knife had been used to kill several Viet Cong and NVA fighters.  Decades later, it had dispatched one Taliban.  Now it was going to cut a foreign enemy’s throat right here in Tennessee.  The wars were sure getting closer.  They couldn’t get any closer than this one—this one was walking distance from his old childhood haunts.  No Air Force transport plane or chartered jet airliner was needed to deliver him to this war.  At least he had the home field advantage for a change.

Just a few more steps now.  Without night vision goggles, the enemy was nearly blind.  His hands were outstretched to feel ahead for unseen obstacles.  He was walking slowly, tentatively.  Boone focused on breathing silently, and matching the Cossack stride for stride.  Only one more yard, he was close enough to touch the soldier’s pack.  His right hand held the knife blade forward, ready to strike.  He visualized his next moves: left hand over the face, pull back his head, and slash the throat.

It was almost too easy, like a jungle panther stalking a lost suburban poodle.  Boone matched another step and held his breath, now less than a yard behind his oblivious victim.  The man was several inches shorter, so the reach for the head and the cut across the throat would be easy.  Boone had every possible advantage, the foreign soldier had none.  The soldier’s pistol was holstered, his hands groping blindly in front of him.  He had a pack on his back and was carrying only a pistol, not a rifle.  Only a pistol… 

Boone looked again and saw three small stars arranged in a triangle on each soft shoulder board, just outside the straps of his pack.  And the pack: it was not in the Russian flecked-camouflage pattern, it was a plain-colored model, an American commercial type that he recognized, similar to those purchased privately by American soldiers and SWAT cops.  The exterior gear attachment system was of the current American standard.  And there was another small kit bag, riding by the soldier’s left side, that did not look military at all.  To his green night eyes, it appeared to be bright, shiny plastic.  

The pistol and three stars meant he was not just a Cossack or even a Russian soldier, but an officer!  But a foreign officer with an American-style pack?  This man was a find, a prize, worth far more alive than dead.  Boone reached over the pack to its front, between the pack and the enemy’s collar, and jerked sharply rearward while stepping back and to the side in an aikido pirouette.  The soldier, thrown off balance and totally surprised, flew past him and thudded onto his back, landing across his pack like an upended turtle.  Boone followed and pounced down on him, straddling his body at the hips.  The cutting edge of the knife was laid across his enemy’s throat in a second.

Any Russian words that Boone had ever learned did not rise to his lips tonight.  Not “stop” or “surrender” or “hands up,” which he had learned to say in a half dozen languages over the years.  But he didn’t need to speak—the enemy spoke first.

“Don’t hurt the baby!”

“What the
hell
?” Boone replied, stunned by the sudden turn.  The soldier’s face was smooth, not bearded or whiskery.  “You’re not one of them?
 
You’re not even a man!”
 
Clearly this was not an ordinary Cossack officer.  The person below him was a female—that was becoming obvious.  Boone was not expecting to hear English, and he was certainly not expecting a woman.  Once they were both still, her face was clear to him in the green light of his NVGs.  The soldier was a woman, and a young one at that.

“You’re—an American?” returned the female voice, struggling for breath beneath his weight.

“Yes, I’m an American.”  He pulled the blade back away from her throat, but only an inch.  “What are you doing here?  Why are you wearing a Russian uniform?”

“Do you mind getting off me?  I’m carrying a baby, and you’re crushing her.”

“You’re pregnant?”  Boone relaxed a fraction and lifted up some of his weight, while kneeling in the snow over the prone form pinned beneath him. 

“No I’m not pregnant, I mean I’m
carrying
a baby.  Right here, under my jacket.”  The baby, roughly jostled and pushed, began to cry.

A white light flashed on above them, shining down on Jenny’s face.  She was blinking upward against the sudden glare.  From above Boone’s shoulder Doug said, “Well, now I’ve seen everything.  An American girl, in a Russian uniform, in a snowstorm, with a baby.”

Boone tipped his NVGs from his face up onto his forehead, then pushed himself up and pulled Jenny to her feet.  Doug covered her with his M-4 carbine, its muzzle a yard from her torso.

Boone ordered, “Just keep your hands up until we figure out what’s going on.”

“I can’t keep them both up—I have to hold the baby with at least one arm.”  The infant was visibly squirming inside her parka, and began to cry.

She was not following the script.  Who was this girl in a Russian uniform, with a gun and a baby, out in a snowstorm?  “Okay, then keep your right hand up, up away from the pistol.  You’re alone?”

“No, I told you about this baby.”

“But nobody’s following you?”

“God, I sure hope not.  You’re
really
an American?”  She looked back and forth between the two men.

“Yeah, I’m really an American.  Okay, let’s get you out of the snow.”  They were not far from the holly trees, and with Doug holding a flashlight they were able to walk back in less than a minute.  The rifle was aimed at the girl’s back.

Phil Carson and Zack Tutweiler were waiting by the holly trees when the others returned.  Their weapons were leveled, Carson’s 9mm Berretta and Zack’s lever-action Winchester 30-30 rifle.  Boone said, “We found a pair of strays.  Relax, put up the guns.”  They stood under the raised holly branches, at the back of the Subaru.  Its hatchback was lifted, showing the packs and bags stowed tightly in the rear cargo area.  Boone had to adapt his plan on the fly.  Doug held his flashlight pointing at the ground, but it provided enough light, reflecting back up off the snow.

Boone said, “Okay, let’s start with your name.”

She couldn’t speak again until she had caught her breath.  “Jenny McClure.”

“All right, Jenny, first, take out your pistol very slowly and hand it to me.”

“Oh, no.  No way.  It’s mine.  I’m not giving it to anybody.  You guys already have guns—I need one too.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Boone answered curtly.  He was accustomed to being obeyed by prisoners.

“You know what?” she replied.  “The last guy who said I didn’t have a choice tonight is dead.  This used to be his pistol.  This was his uniform too.  I killed him a few hours ago.”

She was clearly serious about keeping the gun, so Boone let that go for the time being.  “Let’s back up, Jenny.  Where are you from?”

“I used to live with my family in Germantown, that’s just outside of Memphis.”

“So where do you live now?”

“I’ve been staying with my aunt and uncle, just south of Mannville.”

“Where exactly?  Be specific.”

“Ben Duggin Road, on the south loop.  The new houses.”

“I know the place.  Hank McClure is your uncle?”

“Yes, they took me in after the earthquakes.  Hank and Rochelle.”

“Good man.”

“Very,” she agreed.

Boone was satisfied with her story, at least for the time being.  Hank McClure was a former Marine Corps officer who helped train and organize the neighborhood defense teams around Mannville.  They had met, and Boone remembered hearing something about his young niece, who had trekked solo from Memphis to Radford County after the earthquakes. “So Jenny, what’s in the pack?  Is it yours?”

“It is now.  It belonged to the guy I killed.  Now it’s mine—so don’t get any ideas.”

“He was a Cossack officer?”

“No, he was an American, but he was working with them.  He was a translator or something.  It was his pack.  Other than a sausage and some water, I don’t know what’s in it.  I haven’t stopped to look—I’ve been in too much of a hurry.”

“Well, we need to look, right now.  Doug, help her take it off.  Jenny, where did you get this pack, and the uniform?  And what’s that, a diaper bag?  And what about the baby?  Is it yours?”

She looked between the men.  “You’re really Americans?  You’re not working for the…the Kazakhstans or whoever they are?”

“I already told you we’re Americans,” said Boone, “And no, we’re not working with the Cossacks.  We’re fighting against them and against all of the other foreign enemies.  And against the American traitors too, for that matter.  Foreign, domestic, we don’t care.”

“So you’re fighting against the Kazaks?”

“Kazaks, Cossacks, same difference.  That’s what we do, every day,” said Boone.

“Well, I escaped from them tonight.”  Jenny sat beneath the hatchback, on the wide rear bumper.  “I’ve been walking for hours, since before I found the baby.  That’s what I need to tell you, about where I found the baby.  If you’re fighting the foreign soldiers, I need to tell you a lot.  I was in Mannville today, at the Saturday swap market.  You know the place?”