“This is where we part ways,” whispered Grant to Kristina. “The chopper shouldn’t be more than about five to six hundred meters away.”
“I’ll find it,” said Kristina. “Let’s just hope my other phone survived the crash and didn’t burn up when the helicopter caught fire.”
“The odds aren’t good that it’ll work after all that.”
“Then I’ll steal one. Either way, we need help.”
Grant glanced up at the half-moon. “Keep to the trees. Even with this moon, you’ll show up as a bright green ghost on someone’s thermal sight.”
“Major, I know my job. Where do you want to RV after you’ve rescued your friends?”
“Why don’t we meet back at the ledge on the side of the mountain?”
“The ledge it is.” Kristina held out her hand. “See you soon, Major.”
Grant grinned. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon enough.” He shook her hand and waited for her to vanish among the fir trees before creeping forward to the edge of the tree line. The camp was lit up. He looked for a covered approach and spotted a line of trees that came almost to one of the transport helicopters. A handful of men walked the perimeter. If he was going to get his hands on a uniform, that would be the place to do it.
The loud whoosh of a flare rocketing up into the sky sent Grant diving for the ground. In no time, the flare burst to life. Suspended by a parachute, the brightly burning flare swung from side to side as it fell back to earth.
Gunfire!
Grant swore under his breath. Someone must have spotted Kristina and was hunting her down. His gut instincts told him to go after her and help, but he had bigger problems tonight. Kristina was on her own.
“Do you see that?” said Gabrielle, pointing at the flare hanging above the top of the trees.
“Yeah,” Maclean muttered, clenching his fists by his sides. “Looks like the bad guys are after our friends.”
“It won’t be long before we kill or capture your comrades,” boasted Taras, standing outside of Nazarov’s personal tent.
Maclean looked the thug in the eyes. “I wouldn’t place a bet on that if I were you.”
“Ah, you must be Sergeant Maclean,” said Taras mockingly. “My men told me you surrendered without a fight. Hardly the actions of a veteran Special Forces soldier. Perhaps you’re not as tough as you think you are?”
Maclean stepped close. “Why don’t you and I take a walk and see who’s got the parts?”
“Taras, leave my dinner guests alone,” ordered Nazarov. “Perhaps you two can continue this conversation another time?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Maclean.
Taras said nothing. He scowled at Maclean and stepped aside so everyone could enter the tent. There was a collapsible table in the middle of the tent set with five place settings.
“Please take a seat,” said Nazarov, helping Elena sit down. “I hope roast beef, potatoes, and peas will be acceptable.”
“I’m famished,” said Maclean. “Roadkill would have hit the spot right now.”
“It sounds delicious,” said Gabrielle, taking a sip of water from her cup.
Nazarov sat at the head of the table. “While we wait for our meal to arrive, I’m sure there are many questions you’re dying to ask me. Please feel free to ask whatever you want. No subject will be off-limits.”
Hayes leaned forward. “Well then, I’ll begin. In the base, you referred to the reanimated soldiers as your children, not your grandfather’s. Why is that?”
“Why do you think I said that, Mister Hayes?”
“Because they are your creations. The story about wanting to find your grandfather’s remains was nothing more than a smoke screen.”
“Correct. I have lived among the people of this country for one hundred and twenty years, waiting for the right moment to make my move.”
“Move against what?” asked Maclean.
“Moscow,” replied Nazarov. “My followers and I will wipe that wretched city off the map, and I will emerge out of the night as Russia’s savior. It won’t take my disciples and me long to establish a new order throughout the land.”
“I’m not following you,” said Elena. “Why would an extraterrestrial want to take control of a country on a planet far less advanced than his own?”
“A fair question,” said Nazarov. “Once I have taken control of this nation’s WMDs, others like me will do so around the globe, and before you know it, your civilization will be run by beings with a far greater intellect than you possess.”
“And all along, I thought it was those shapeshifting reptiles you see on the covers of magazines at the grocery store who wanted to take the place of our world leaders,” said Maclean.
“You’ll find that’s nothing more than a rumor we spread through your rather gullible press,” explained Nazarov.
Maclean remembered the deadly encounter in Alaska and thought about correcting Nazarov, but let it go.
The flap to the tent opened, and three men walked in carrying the supper. The aroma of freshly cooked roast beef made Maclean’s mouth water. Nazarov helped dish out the servings before dismissing his followers.
“Please, let’s continue our discussion while we eat,” said Nazarov.
“What puzzles me was your inability to locate this base,” said Hayes. “Surely, if you had worked here decades ago, you should have known of its existence?”
“To answer that question, we must go back in time to just prior to the outbreak of the war. I was a scientist working for the Soviets. It was torture pretending not to know how to do the simplest of things. I could have given Stalin an atomic bomb in 1939, but even back then, I could see no good coming from a man like him with a weapon like that in his hands. When I was seconded to the NKVD, I learned of Operation Thunderbolt and saw it as an opportunity to try something new.”
“I take it they built you this base and gave you whatever you wanted as long as in return you gave them an army of super soldiers,” said Hayes.
“Correct,” said Nazarov between bites. “Things were proceeding just as I had planned. Orphaned teens were shipped to the base on a monthly basis to undergo gene reversion treatments. I tried to tap into your species’ DNA to strip away millions of years of evolution while simultaneously attempting to bulk up the test subjects. The result is a creature who looks like something you call a Neanderthal but is embodied with brute strength and blind loyalty to its creator.”
“Looks like you fell far short of an army,” said Maclean. “What happened?”
“I’m not a geneticist by training, so it took years for me to get the process right,” explained Nazarov. “Thousands died before I found the right combination of drugs and therapy to devolve my test subjects. By this time, the war had turned against the Nazis, and Stalin wasn’t as interested in my project as he had been in the past. My immediate NKVD supervisors feared what I had created and saw it as a possible tool to overthrow Stalin, so they asked for permission to terminate the operation, and me with it.”
“You’re still here, so they obviously failed,” said Hayes.
“Yes and no. One night I was woken from my sleep and ordered to pull the plug on my creations. When I objected, they threatened to kill me. I knew I was going to die, so I went along with them for as long as I could. It was horrible. NKVD agents rounded up the women and children living here and drove them away in the back of dangerously overcrowded trucks, while the men were murdered in cold-blood. I deactivated the generator keeping my children alive and said my farewells before being dragged outside. I still remember the cold feeling of having a pistol barrel placed against the side of my head.”
“My God, what happened?” asked Elena.
“The agent assigned to kill me botched the job. The bullet grazed the side of my head, knocking me out cold. When I came to, it was dawn, and I was in a shallow grave with a couple of dozen other men. I crawled out and made my way deep into the woods where I kept my ship hidden. I took a power pack from it and returned to the base. Fortunately, there was no one in sight. After butchering the men, the NKVD agents broke into the people’s homes and ransacked them. Before too long, most were drunk out of their minds. I slipped inside the base and hooked up my power pack to keep my creations alive. I then sealed the door with a keypad I knew the NKVD would never decode and crept back outside.”
“What happened next?” asked Gabrielle, hanging on every word.
“I was shot again. This time the bullet damaged my heart. I fled as best I could into the forest. At some point, I must have tripped over something, as I woke up in the dirt with a bump the size of a goose egg on my head. I barely made it back to my ship. With my life hanging by a thread, I barely managed to hook myself up to my life-support computer, and that’s the last thing I remember until I reentered Earth’s atmosphere in the late nineteen-seventies.”
“That story doesn’t make any sense,” said Maclean.
“It does, if you understand the nature of the safety features built into my ship. When I blacked out, the craft automatically took off. However, since I had removed one of its power packs, the ship lacked the power to return me safely to my homeworld. Instead, it activated a cloaking shield, and I floated around in orbit while my body healed itself.”
“It took you three decades to recover?” asked Hayes.
“No. I was probably healed a few months after being shot. It’s got to do with my ship’s programming. When it saw the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the discord spreading across the globe, and the inevitable collapse of the USSR, it woke me and returned me to Earth to carry on with my mission. The problem was that either the bullet that grazed my skull or the rock I smashed into while trying to escape, gave me what you humans refer to as post-concussion amnesia.”
“You could remember your past, just not key details of the day you were traumatized by your injuries,” said Hayes. “So, the base’s location and the keypad code were things your brain told you were there, you just couldn’t recall where.”
Nazarov clapped his hands. “Precisely. So, over the years, I bided my time and built up a small army of loyal followers, always knowing at some point I would be able to put it all together and get what I was after.”
“Surely, your tiny army of hybrids isn’t what you’ve waited for all these years to get your hands on?” said Maclean.
“Oh, but it is, and I’ll let you know why. One hundred and thirty-six kilometers to the west of us is a secret Russian Army missile installation. Using an abandoned coal mine as its cover, the base is built into the side of a mountain. The beauty of this operation is that this base is not supposed to exist, so help will take ages to reach it. At first light tomorrow, my people and I will storm the facility and take control of the 139th Guards Missile Regiment’s inventory of nuclear missiles. There are twelve nuclear warheads stored there, each with a yield of eight hundred kilotons. I intend to use four on Moscow, just to make sure it gets what it deserves.”
“You’re mad,” blurted out Elena. “You’ll kill millions of innocent people.”
“I estimate that four to six million will die in the blasts, and another four million will die from their injuries and the resulting radioactive fallout,” said Nazarov.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Hayes. “You’re a brilliant scientist in your own right. Why murder women and children when you know you could buy the Russian presidency?”
“The NKVD tried to kill me, and I want my revenge. It’s as simple as that. The day after the blasts, I’ll be everywhere, making sure my company is leading the charge to help save as many lives as possible. By this time next year, I’ll be president for life, as will my brothers in America, Great Britain, France, and China.”
“This is too horrible to believe,” said Elena, shaking her head.
“Believe me, it will happen, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me,” responded Nazarov.
“Why did you bother to tell us all of this?” asked Hayes.
“Because I need men of vision, like yourself, to help me craft my new society,” said Nazarov.
Hayes sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry if you think I’m going to help you commit genocide. I don’t want any part of this, or you.”
Nazarov let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“Well, I do.”
“Very well. Guards!” The flap flung open and armed men rushed inside. “Leave Doctor Leon where she is, and bring everyone else with me.”
“James, I’m scared,” said Elena to Maclean.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back shortly,” he replied, winking at her.
“Where are we going?” asked Hayes.
“You’ll see,” said Nazarov as he led them to the closest group of his hybrid soldiers.
The creatures stood around a roaring fire. They saw Nazarov coming and cheered him.
“My children, I see you have eaten well tonight,” said Nazarov. “Are you still hungry?”
“Yes!” cried out several of the beasts.
Maclean reached back and pushed Gabrielle behind him. Hidden in the sleeve of his shirt was his dinner knife. He planned to sell his life dearly.
From out of the shadows came two men dragging Karpov with them.
“Sir, sir, what is going on?” pleaded Karpov. Purple bruises covered his face.
Nazarov turned to face Hayes. “Join me, and I will give you my word that your colleagues’ lives will be spared.”
Hayes looked at Karpov and the row of salivating creatures standing behind him. The man was doomed. Hayes lowered his head. “Yes. I’ll help you if you let my friends live.”
Nazarov placed a hand on Hayes’ shoulder. “Good, because you wouldn’t want this to happen to them, would you?”
“No!” screamed Karpov as the two guards pushed him into the waiting arms of the creatures. His terrified wails mercifully died out quickly as he was ripped limb from limb and eaten raw.
Gabrielle buried her face in Maclean’s shoulder.
“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to stop being cannibalistic,” said Nazarov as if he were talking about the weather.
“Come on, Dave, where are you?” muttered Maclean to himself.
Nazarov snapped his fingers. “Guards, take them back to my tent, and keep a close eye on them.”
Maclean tucked an arm around Gabrielle’s shoulders. “Try not to think about what just happened.”
“This is a nightmare,” said Gabrielle, choking back tears. “I just want to wake up in my bed back on base, safe and sound.”
“Me too,” said Maclean. “Let’s just hope that this will all be over soon.”
“James, I don’t want to be eaten alive by those monsters. If it comes to that, I want you to kill me first.”
Maclean hesitated for a moment.
“Promise me that you’ll kill me,” insisted Gabrielle.
Maclean squeezed her shoulder. “If it comes to that, I’ll kill us both.”