It was an unusually cold and windy September evening, but that had not deterred a few hundred members of Mother Russia from gathering. Inside the old, run-down factory, the body temperatures of the disparate crowd had risen above the freezing conditions. Several were in uniform; many had brought signs or banners with nationalist slogans. The atmosphere was thick with tension and hate; many had been drinking all day. That was, after all, the only pastime most of them knew. At one end of the factory hangar, a temporary stage had been erected, and on it stood Andrej Nitchenko flanked by red flags. He was already in full oratorical flow and hammered his fist onto the podium every time he felt the need to emphasise his tirade:
‘Our so-called leaders have given up! They are the ones to blame for your well-earned wages and pensions being delayed for months on end. Our leaders are cowards that allow our proud Russia to be under the thumb of the imperialist USA and their warmongering allies in Western Europe. We can’t allow their attempt to crush the independence of the Russian people! It’s a conspiracy. They aim to destabilise Russia and weaken our military. NATO’s armies are 318poised to follow through on what Hitler and Napoleon couldn’t: to make the Russian people slaves of imperialism! Mother Russia won’t allow it! We’re the only safeguard against the aggressions of our enemies. We’ll ensure that Russia immediately mobilises along our borders to the West to counter the imperialist expansion of NATO by extending membership to Poland; that every Russian officer will be immediately retracted from NATO’s headquarters in Brussels; that nuclear and conventional arms reductions, as agreed in the START-negotiations, are ceased immediately; that new nuclear tests are commenced immediately to ensure Russia has the technology that will enable us to conduct pre-emptive strikes; that miners, soldiers, pensioners, and others who, for months, haven’t received their wages and pensions are immediately paid through the state-seizure of capitalist Western businesses and assets in Russia; and that our military is deployed against the bandits who have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people since the treacherous dissolution of the Soviet Union.’
Andrej Nitchenko paused for effect, straightened and gazed out over the crowd as he slowly raised the clenched fist of his right hand. The applause erupted at once, and he prepared for his final exclamation:
‘To all the nouveaux riches, oligarchs and other scoundrels who have drained the lifeblood from Russia’s people in the name of their own greed – let this be a warning! Mother Russia will return your ill-gotten wealth to its rightful owners. To the sons and daughters of Russia!’
The crowd erupted in an inferno of spontaneous, deafening cheers and curses directed at the West and the bandits; several hundred hands raised in a synchronised salute. As Nitchenko 319again lifted his fist, a resounding roar surged through the crowd towards the platform, as if the cocktail of vodka and pent-up anger had been released into a wild howl. As Andrej Nitchenko left the stage, the crowd went wilder still, and the sound wave propelled him through the hall and out through the back door. Inside the hangar, the crowd boiled over into spontaneous brawls. Years of bottled-up frustrations had finally been set free.
Outside, Sergey Pustynikov was waiting, holding open the door of the black Mercedes.
‘Did you like my speech?’ Nitchenko asked as he climbed into the back seat.
‘You held the idiots in the palm of your hand,’ Pustynikov told him with a condescending grin as he sat beside him.
‘Don’t talk like that about the masses who will guarantee our success,’ Andrej Nitchenko replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he belched. He retrieved a bottle of vodka from the pocket behind the driver’s seat and helped himself to a swig.
‘The passage about our competitors went over very well!’ said Sergey Pustynikov, letting loose a coarse guffaw.
He was truly a comrade in arms. Andrej Nitchenko felt elevated by this verbal pat on the back.
‘Do you think it’ll provoke any reaction from the competition?’
‘Undoubtedly. But the guard will take care of that. They’re just waiting for an opportunity to show what they’re made of,’ Sergey Pustynikov said firmly as he affectionately patted the Vikhr sub-machine gun he carried in a shoulder holster under his left armpit.
He was happy with his faithful companion, which was a development of the famous AK-74 assault rifle. More compact and 320weighing just two kilos. With the folding stock fully extended, it measured a mere sixty-four centimetres. Sergey Pustynikov’s military experience had taught him to trust only himself and his weapon. Beneath his coat, a unique shoulder holster concealed the Vikhr; its nine by thirty-nine-millimetre armour surround and a rate of fire of nine hundred rounds a minute could handle most situations. And to cover all bases, he carried a silencer and a holographic sight in his coat pockets.
‘Isn’t it ironic that it’s called a whirlwind? That was the codename of the Anti-Bandit-operation our esteemed President launched in 1999 as a reaction to the bombings of that residential complex in Moscow,’ Pustynikov said and touched the Vikhr once more. ‘It was developed in co-operation with the Army’s Central Firearms Centre in Rzhevsk, and it was certainly ahead of its time when it was introduced to us in 1995.’
Nitchenko was just staring vacantly out of the car’s window. Only a grunt signalled that he had been listening. The black Mercedes sped through the bleak night of the St Petersburg suburb, and he took another swig from the vodka bottle.