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“So this is Finland.” Reaper stepped off the commercial flight to Helsinki with just a carry-on bag. Dressed in jeans and a warm jacket, hair peroxided and bobbed, she looked very much like one of the blonde-and-bronzed Laplanders of the Saami people, common stock in this Nordic country.
Beside her, Roger Muzik grunted. Wearing his hair long to try to look less military, he slouched to reduce the impression his six-four frame made. “No, this is an airport. Finland is out there.” He waved at the expanse of mountains visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
After passing through customs without a hitch – no metal detectors departing security, after all – they spotted a man holding a sign that said “Rockerfeller,” the recognition code. Without speaking they nodded and followed him to a Japanese-built SUV parked in the lot. Only when they were on the road did anyone say anything.
“Good trip?” asked the contact.
“My mother got sick,” Reaper replied.
“She should take a hot bath and eat some fish,” the driver said.
“Only if she likes lentils,” Reaper completed the quatrain.
“Is that what they call tradecraft?” Muzik asked.
“Sorry,” the driver replied sheepishly. “Cheesy, but effective. Call me Olsen.”
“She’s Johnston. I’m Stein,” Muzik said. “Our gear?”
“Shipped in by bonded container and already waiting for you at the safe house.”
Muzik glanced sharply at the other man. “Still sealed?”
The man looked slightly insulted. “Of course. We’re not amateurs.”
“Sorry. We’re not field agents –”
“Obviously,” the man said drily.
“– but we’re the best at our own jobs, so how about we lose the attitude?” Muzik stared at the man’s eyes in the rear-view mirror until he looked away.
“Right. Well, we have a couple of hours to drive. Everybody like Abba?” Olsen reached for the music player.
Two hours and a couple dozen oldies later, after a lovely drive through pastureland and evergreen-covered hills, they arrived at a nondescript farmhouse on the outskirts of Kouvola. Inside its barn a standard intermodal shipping container stood. Reaper and Muzik exchanged glances, remembering the last time they had seen one up close – from the inside, when it had contained the mini-sub with which they had hijacked the USS Nebraska.
“Funny lock,” Olsen remarked, and he examined it closely. What held the door closed looked different from the usual: two keyholes and a number pad, and it was no padlock. Rather, it was installed within the door.
“Yes...” Muzik pulled a key out on a chain around his neck, while Reaper did the same.
“At least we’re not...” She almost continued, “launching nuclear missiles again,” when she realized that those words were not something she wanted to bandy in front of a stranger.
Muzik nodded to show that he understood, then stepped forward with his key. Together they inserted them and then punched in half of the number sequence. The door opened. He looked inside for along moment with a pocket flashlight, then shut and locked it again. “We’ll get some sleep, and then we’ll gear up at,” he checked his watch, “2000 hours. At that time, sir, you need to have that boat trailer in this barn.”
Olsen nodded, questioning no further, and left.
Reaper looked around the inside of the structure. Two draft horses moved restlessly in stalls, and a dozen bales of hay were stacked against the wall, with more in the loft four meters above. She took a deep breath of farm smell, and then went over to make friends with the equines. A measure of oats each from a nearby bin was all it took.
That task done and the horses settled, she flicked her eyes upward, then jumped to the top of the ladder leading to the loft above.
Landing crouched in the attic-like space, she examined every bit of it. “Look for a root cellar or anything on the ground, will you, Mister Stein?” I may not be a CIA field agent, but I know how to check security.
Pressing a spot on her inner wrist, she ran her hand along the floor, walls and ceiling, checking for bugs or other electronics. All she found was one electrical wire that fed the bare bulb above, and a lot more hay. She looked out of the upper window, seeing little but farms for miles. All seemed quiet. Murphy is nowhere in sight...for now.
“Nothing down here,” Muzik called.
“Good. Let’s rest up for a bit.”
“You don’t want to check out the vehicle?”
“No,” said Reaper. “I’m sure it’s exactly how we packed it, and I’d rather sleep first and then kit up than the reverse. If by some bizarre chance something happens, I’d rather not have a few million bucks worth of illegal stuff scattered around for some Finnish sheriff to stumble over on a random visit.”
“I don’t think Finland has sheriffs.”
“Constables, then. Whatever. Besides, I think Olsen’s just a little too curious. I bet the quality of spook in the Agency has fallen off somewhat in the last few years...or something’s amiss.”
Muzik looked thoughtful. “You think there is something wrong?”
“No. If I did, I’d have everything broken out and we’d push up the timetable to throw any opponents off. I just get a funny vibe off the man.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” He jumped up into the loft with her holding a couple of horse blankets. “Might as well start our snooze. You first?”
“Fine.” She grabbed the coverings and lay down in the hay while Muzik took first watch. She slept immediately.
Three hours later they switched, and three hours after that Reaper found her vague fears unjustified. Precisely on time, Olsen backed the SUV with a heavy marine trailer into the barn and up to the container. Hopping out, he asked, “Okay, what now? You got a boat in there I presume?”
Muzik just grunted, and waved Reaper over. They opened the container and then folded the hinged sides down, pulling large pieces of packing foam away.
“Damn,” Olsen breathed.
Within stood a submersible. Smaller than the one with which they had boarded the nuclear submarine so long ago, it was made of carbon fiber and was large enough to fit two uncomfortably. Everything they needed nested within, out of sight.
“Let’s get it loaded,” Reaper said, and Olsen reeled off the hook and cable from the trailer’s winch. Soon it inched slowly up onto the padded rails.
“That’s going to be a bit conspicuous,” Olsen remarked.
“Not when we get through with it.” Reaper climbed onto the craft and opened the hatch, pulling out a flexible frame. A gas cylinder inflated it and soon the skeleton of what looked like a boat surrounded the submersible. The next thing to come out of the hatch was a series of snap-on custom tarps. In ten minutes, what sat on the trailer resembled a large fishing boat covered up for the weather. It wouldn’t stand a close inspection, but they did not expect to be subject to one.
“Let’s go,” Reaper said, swinging into the truck’s passenger seat. She took one last deep breath of hay and horse before shutting the door. “Nice country, this.”
“Yes it is. Thinking of retiring here,” Olsen responded.
So...that’s all I’m sensing. Olsen’s gone a bit native. Probably has a local girl tucked away somewhere, and is having second thoughts about his work. “Olsen,” she spoke up, “We’re not supposed to tell you anything about this op, but if it will help you sleep at night, it’s nothing to do with Finland, and shouldn’t backfire into here.”
Olsen licked his lips, then nodded, relaxing slightly. They drove in silence from then on, except for the radio.
Three hours later they approached the Russian border near Simpele. Soon they turned off onto a rutted track heading southeast, and slowed down. Olsen engaged the four-wheel drive. “Poacher’s road,” he remarked. “Hunting is strictly controlled in Finland, so a lot of them sneak into Russia for good unregistered game. If they get caught on that side, they just pay off the officials.”
The sun was just going down in this far northern latitude, a half hour until midnight. Ten minutes later they turned onto an even tinier track that led to a cabin two hundred meters back. “All right, then this is as far as I go.” Olsen retrieved a stout walking stick, a backpack and a flashlight from the back of the SUV. “I’ll be staying here until you get back, up to a week. Just rejoin the main track and keep heading southeast.”
Muzik held up a map in a plastic case. “Got it. Hopefully we’ll see you in two days. Monitor your secure radio. Thanks for everything.” Muzik hopped out and took the driver’s seat.
“Right. Good luck.”
Fifteen minutes later they reached Russia, but this area was so sparsely populated there wasn’t even a sign, just a tumbledown shack that looked like it had last been used during the First Cold War. Twilight deepened but Muzik declined to turn on the lights until they broke out of the trees and onto a marginally paved road.
“Okay, it’s about twenty kilometers to Elisenvaara, then another twenty to Kurkiyeki. From there we have to find the inlet.”
An hour of slow travel later – the road was terrible, and Muzik did not want to jostle the submersible too badly – they arrived at the fishing village they sought. Only a couple of lights burned in what looked to be a public house, and they quickly passed through, ignoring the few witnesses in the dark, driving out of town to the southwest. Two minutes later Reaper directed them onto another tiny road and into some heavy woods.
“This one should run right across a low bridge a long ways from any habitation.” She checked the satellite imagery in her hand with her dim flashlight once more. “Just up a couple of minutes.”
Soon they broke out of the trees and saw the bridge they expected in front of them. Pulling carefully off the road, they got out in the dim light of the false sunset and examined the lay of the land.
“Damn. Bank’s too steep. There’s no way we can back this trailer down it.”
Muzik looked at the water, the sheer five-meter drop-off, then at the truck. “We winch it down. It only weighs a ton or so. Then we float it out a bit, ditch the trailer, hide the truck and swim back out to it.”
“All right. Deflate the hide frame.” Soon they had the trailer back up to the edge of the short embankment and carefully slid the thing off the trailer and down to the water’s edge. At the bottom, they grasped the handles, two on a side, and braced their feet. “Ready? One, two, three.”
Laminated bones and polymerized muscles creaking, they lifted the micro-sub and carried it heavily into a meter of water or so, feet sinking a foot into the soft lake bed, then set it down and slid it further out until it floated.
“No current. It should be fine.” They scrambled up the bank muddy and dripping, and then detached the trailer. Carrying it fifty meters down the shore on the other side of the bridge, they lifted it together and launched it as far as they could to fall into the water. Fortunately, it was deep enough to cover the flat shallow thing.
Next the SUV itself went into the woods, with the boat tarps covering it first, then some cut branches. Hopefully no hunter or fisherman would stumble across it in the next days. Worst case scenario, if it was stolen or damaged they could hoof it back across the Finnish border to the cabin.
Returning to the bridge, they suddenly stopped short. A man stood upon it with a fishing pole and a tackle box, looking the other direction in the dim light.
Staring at the sub.
“How’s your Russian?” Reaper whispered.
“Decent, actually.”
She looked at Muzik in surprise.
“What, you think ‘Muzik’ is a good Scottish name like yours? Grandpa came from Slovakia after the war. He made us learn Slovak and Russian.”
“All yours, then.”
“For what?”
“We can’t let him report this.”
“I’m not going to kill him, but if we knock him out, he’ll inform the police and they will find the SUV and the trailer. Not to mention he’ll tell them about the sub.”
“Dammit.” Reaper thought for a moment, hissed and pointed. “Do something. He’s going down to get a closer look.”
Muzik swore in response, then stood up and walked toward the bridge on the road. Once on the low bridge, he called out something Reaper could not make out. She crept up along the road’s embankment, staying out of sight.
Switching her vision on her left, cybernetic eye to infrared, she watched and listened as Muzik held a long conversation, not understanding a word. After almost ten minutes of tension, the two men shook hands and the local walked away down the road to the west.
Moments later, Muzik explained as they waded to the submersible and pushed it farther out into the water. “Name’s Rasmus. His Russian was worse than mine. I got him to admit he was a Finn living here illegally. I think he’s probably wanted in Finland.”
“Why won’t he report what he saw?”
“I gave him the cash I had on me, and promised him more when we return.”
Reaper climbed carefully through the narrow hatch. “I hope that’s enough incentive. There’s a lot that can go wrong.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get back. Five-meter targets.” He climbed in after her and sealed the hatch. “I’ll drive first, okay boss?”
“Sure.” Reaper stripped off her civilian clothes in the back as Muzik settled in to the control cockpit in front, powering up the vehicle.
Soon ghostly lights glowed – screens with readouts and a few old-fashioned gauges – and a low hum filled the cylinder as the electric motor began to push them through the shallow water. An inertial navigation system provided them with reasonably good direction, especially at the start of their journey. Such devices grew progressively less accurate if not updated with a solid positional reading, but all this had to do was get them to within sight of the lights of Salmi and they could pilot in manually from there.
Once she had changed into her skinsuit, Reaper lay down on the one narrow bunk to sleep. Waking up several hours later, she used the tiny facility, ate and drank, and switched positions with Muzik, squeezing past him on one side of the seat as he exited the other.
“We’re running fine at one meter depth, with at least a hundred meters under the keel,” Muzik reported as he changed his clothes. “Inertial says we’re well out into Lake Ladoga, and it’s the middle of the night, so now would be a good time to run up the snorkel and use the generator. Sonar shows nobody around.”
“Right.” They had a compact diesel generator to recharge the batteries, but of course that needed air and a place to put the exhaust gases. A touch of another control deployed the dual pipe arrangement and soon the generator rumbled. It should be nearly silent on the surface, with just a ten-centimeter conduit poking up.
An hour of this and the batteries were full again. By that time the sun was starting to come up, around three in the morning.
By midday they had arrived outside Salmi harbor, and slowly, carefully bottomed the craft in fifty meters of water.
“This would have been a lot easier with more darkness,” Reaper grumbled.
Muzik shook his head. “Yes, but the lake starts icing up by September and doesn’t thaw until May. They keep the harbors and some channels open with icebreakers, but that would have made for worse problems than this. Besides, we can’t let the program go on that long. It’s bad enough that Russia has a puppet government at the top. What if they have time to manufacture thousands of Shadow Men – and Women I suppose – to bird-dog every important official?”
“I know that. Just venting. What else is there to do?” The lights were low to conserve power and there was no heater so the air was chilly.
“You could read.” Muzik waved an old Kindle at her. “Got the latest Star Force book downloaded just before we left.”
“What’s that, #23 now?”
“Yeah. Good stuff.”
Reaper snorted. “Who needs science fiction when the aliens really are invading?”
“Hey, everyone needs an escape,” he replied defensively. “I got a few hundred books on here. I’m sure you can find something you like.”
“No, you go on,” she said. “I’ll just sleep.”
Muzik grunted. That was the last thing she heard before she nodded off.
