Whilst Dave is worrying about the destruction of his peaceful existence in the afterlife, Will and Lyra have been contacted by their insane friend from the Battle of Bolvangar, notorious mercenary and least likeliest top performer in the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Jonathan West, who wants them to help him out with something...
"Why in the name of God did I let you talk me into this?" Will wondered aloud, glancing around to make sure nobody was following them. "What does he want us for, anyhow? If he wants me to fly air support for his latest gung-ho escapade then I shall tell him where to insert it."
"Oh, come ON," Lyra replied. "Aren't you after a little excitement after five years of nothing but the old routine?"
"Let me think... No! Fighting Nazis from another dimension gave me all the excitement I'll ever need in my life in less than a week." Five years of peace and quiet had been very welcome to him. William Parry considered himself well and truly OD'd on excitement. He'd prevented a coup d'etat against God, travelled to thirty seven alternate universes and battled the forces of evil more often than he cared to recall, and all before the age of thirty. Frankly, he was more than happy to stop. He had a wife and family, a mortagage, and a garden shed. He bought his furniture from Ikea and listened to Radio 4. He strove to live as normal a lifestyle as a decorated Navy pilot whose wife was from an alternate dimension could possibly manage.
But now he was in Moscow, at the request of a man who was wanted by law enforcement agencies in most of the western hemisphere.
The Young Guns are a book or two all in themselves [Author's note: If I'm as good at this writing lark as I like to think then one day soon they will be]. Jonathan West had achieved notoriety at the tender age of 17 when he, his girlfriend and the mob of ne'er-do-wells he'd picked up somewhere had begun a spree of freelance prison breakouts in Great Britain. Their more widely published exploits included wrecking a death row in Louisiana (the US government had quietly dropped pursuit of the various warrants for their arrest when it was discovered that only one in five of the inmates were actually legally deserving of the death penalty and nearly a quarter were completely innocent; Michael Moore had a field day over this) and breaking up a child-kidnap ring in Russia, where they were now national heroes. Many experts agree -rightly- that they also had a hand in President Putin's dramatic resignation speech; the handgun against his head as he spoke to the cameras was John's sense of humour through and through, at any rate. It is less widely known that the so-called Young Guns were hired by Will's late stepfather for the almighty shootout in the Arctic that finally flattened the Magisterium. They turned up along with a Moscow street gang, an attack helicopter and crew and some former 101st Airbourne personnel to deal with the unpleasant business with Nazis from another dimension as well. They were now acting as go-anywhere, troubleshooting mercenaries jocularly referred to as the J-Team, and running a successful sideline business smuggling would-be immigrants into Britain as well. This last was more of an ideological issue on John's part than anything else, and an unusual degree of effort was being put into ensuring that the passengers arrived in Britain safely and without being found.
Will looked at his watch. "Pickup should be here any minute. I've still got a horrible feeling he'll try to convince us to fly clapped out MiGs and blow stuff up for some Russian gangster with... Oh, that'll be it." A black MPV pulled up near the airport taxi rank, and a man Will didn't recognise got out. "Mark and Elisabeth Ransom? Hi, I'm Eddie Meacom. John couldn't get away to meet you in person; he's negotiating for the loan of some military hardware for a job in Bosnia."
"Bosnia. Right," Will said slowly. Hardline Milosovites were waging a major campaign against the Muslim minority, and the UN response wasn't materialising as quickly as it ought. The major players were dragging their heels about committing troops to stop a war nobody cared about in a country that hardly anybody had even heard of, so evidently the more progressive elements had decided to take matters into their own hands.
The thought of John and his band of loose cannons unleashed on an already chaotic country made Will's blood run cold. This meant explosions, and he'd had his fill of those.
"What does he want us to do?" Lyra asked, raising one eyebrow. Meacom smiled faintly.
"Ever flown a MiG-29?"
Will sighed deeply. "No. No, no, NO. Abso-bloody-lutely... Good God!"
Meacom closed the briefcase full of $20 bills. "John said you'd need a bit of persuasion."
"Well, you've got my attention. Let's go."
They drove to a small warehouse complex outside the city, where the J-Team had their headquarters. It was, incidentally, the very place where the Young Guns had done battle with the Mafia all those years ago. A varied collection of Russian armoured vehicles was parked outside, along with two Hueys.
"So they finally replaced the one that got shot down," Lyra observed. "Who's the new pilot?"
"Isobel. John's in charge of our latest acquisition. There it is now, in fact." Eddie pointed to an Mi-28 'Havoc' gunship that was settling in on the roof of the offices.
"Bloody hell," Will concluded. "What else has he got hold of?"
"Two Ilyushin-76s and an Antonov-124, and four MiG-29s for escort purposes. We're recruiting pilots for those as I speak, and you two are top of John's candidate list. Your old colleague Jack McAllister's number three, and number four is my brother-in-law Yuri; John likes to recruit friends and relatives wherever possible."
Will nodded without really hearing. Can we do this?he asked himself. Can we run the risk of leaving the twins without their parents?Their two children were staying with Dave's parents. The original plan was to name them David and John if they were boys, Mary and Elaine if girls. In the event they wound up with one boy and one girl, named David Jonathan and Elaine Mary Parry respectively. The Ransom surname, adopted as a cover when MI5 were still gunning for everybody associated with the Aurora Borealis, appeared only on birth certificates in this world. Elsewhere it was another matter.
Will didn't want to have what had happened to him happen to his own children; they were growing up knowing BOTH parents, no matter what. However, he was acutely aware that Lyra felt that parents were pretty much dispensable; her own parents were a good example. She'd shot both of them, after all...
The car pulled up, and they got out. A girl with short, spiky black hair waved to Eddie, who smiled back and wandered over. Will exchanged glances with his wife. "Looks like he's under orders -or requests; you know John's leadership style- to leave us in peace."
Trish came running up to them. "Will! Lyra! It's been too long!" Hugs and kisses were exchanged. "Come on in. The others are in conference with our contact in Bosnia, 'cept for John; he's been to collect his new toy."
"Only difference between a boy and a man..." Lyra replied wryly. "So, what's the story behind this Meacom guy? You guys usually keep things in the family."
"Oh, he's one of Anya's buddies. Quite romantic, really; he fell for a girl trying to gain asylum because her family were in trouble with the Mafia, and went with her when she was deported. We came across him when Putin got the push; it was him holding the gun on TV, in fact. He and John both decided to declare war on Blunkett's asylum policies at about the same time, so we pooled our resources and put him in charge of organising it; damn, but he's handy at that part! Tatiana's family are almost all in the military so he's got us some ex-Spetznaz guys, real professional hard bastards, doing convoy security. The local syndicates've taken a few cracks at our operation, plus there's the police and Customs people of about five different countries to worry about."
"Still fighting the establishment, huh?" Will laughed.
"Only the parts that don't remember who backed them up five years ago," Trish replied.
They strolled into the building, to find an air of controlled chaos. People were shifting boxes of stuff around and arguing over pieces of paper in Russian. Phones were going off every few seconds. Over it all, somewhat incongruously, Will could clearly hear a small child whining about something or other. It abruptly ceased, and he glanced over. John and Isobel's five year-old daughter Chloe had been effectively gagged by somebody shoving a huge lump of Cadbury's Dairy Milk in her mouth. Charlie gave them a thumbs-up. Lyra rolled her eyes.
"Sure you want HIS kids?" she said to Trish.
"Don't knock it, it works," Will said with a faint smile.
"William Thomas Parry!" Lyra glared at him, and he wilted visibly. John appeared at this point.
"Hey, guys. Good to have you on the team again."
"We haven't signed up yet," Will pointed out, shaking hands with his old friend. "The cash IS an incentive, though."
"Thought so. Jack signed on in half a second, of course; says he's bored after five years without even a little war." Will sighed. Typical Jack. Wonder what Carrie-Anne thinks of this?Jack had eventually succeeded in getting into his gorgeous Welsh copilot's underwear not long ago. "He's in the conference room with the other pilots. We'll explain the full details in there."
Jack was tipped back in his chair, coffee mug in hand and arguing the relative merits of the Joint Strike Fighter -his usual mount in Fleet Air Arm service- versus the new MiG 44 with a man that Will presumed to be fighter pilot number four. He jumped to his feet.
"Ha! I KNEW John'd think of a way of getting you in on this!" He laughed. "Great to be working with you again, pal!"
"Hey, we haven't signed on yet," Will warned. "And what would Carrie-Anne say if she knew you were doing this?" Jack winced.
"Well, I'm in for the sheer nogalstia of it all," Lyra said firmly. "I reckon it'll be a good laugh." They looked at him expectantly for a while.
Will sagged in defeat. "Okay, okay. I'm in, God help me!"
John gave them a brief outline of what they would be doing. "There's a little town called Brestograd -don't; I've heard all the gags- where government-loyal regular army forces and the local Muslim minority population are fighting a losing battle against Milosecvic's old pals. A Colonel Petrovic contacted me and asked for all the support we could provide; he offered me all the money his townsfolk could scrape together, but we're doing this one pro bono publico. The idea of massacring people because they're different appalls me, and always will. Through contacts made after Operation Eviction Notice eight years ago, I've got hold of enough military hardware to hold off half the Serbian army and the means to get it to where it's needed. We have a trio of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, a T80 main battle tank, three assorted helicopters and four Fulcrum-D fighters with all the bells and whistles. I'd have liked to get hold of a couple of Su-25s for close air support, but they haven't got the range or air-to-air capability to escort the transports, and we haven't got enough pilots to have separate ground attack and dogfighting types anyhow.
"There's a disused runway about thirty miles from Brestograd, where we'll offload our equipment. The Fulcrums can easily stage out of there, and our fuel and weapon caches can be stored there. Our ground assets will be reinforcing the defenders of Brestograd until the Russians can organise a peacekeeping force to relieve us. We can expect repeated attacks and near constant artillery bombardment, so this one's going to be tough. Questions?"
"Can we expect an attack on the airstrip?" Will asked.
"Brestograd's between it and the enemy, so we should be able to intercept any assault directed against the base. Chances are they'll try, though. Lizzie?"
"How big are friendly and enemy forces?" John looked faintly rueful.
"Friendlies on the ground right now number perhaps a hundred fighters. We have about two hundred embarking with us, not counting vehicle and helo crews, medical and service personnel. Ranged against us is a whole mechanised battalion; tanks, armour, attack choppers and about a thousand troops. We'll still have one crucial advantage, though. Air power." The fighter pilots beamed. "We leave in two days."
"Why in the name of God did I let you talk me into this?" Will wondered aloud, glancing around to make sure nobody was following them. "What does he want us for, anyhow? If he wants me to fly air support for his latest gung-ho escapade then I shall tell him where to insert it."
"Oh, come ON," Lyra replied. "Aren't you after a little excitement after five years of nothing but the old routine?"
"Let me think... No! Fighting Nazis from another dimension gave me all the excitement I'll ever need in my life in less than a week." Five years of peace and quiet had been very welcome to him. William Parry considered himself well and truly OD'd on excitement. He'd prevented a coup d'etat against God, travelled to thirty seven alternate universes and battled the forces of evil more often than he cared to recall, and all before the age of thirty. Frankly, he was more than happy to stop. He had a wife and family, a mortagage, and a garden shed. He bought his furniture from Ikea and listened to Radio 4. He strove to live as normal a lifestyle as a decorated Navy pilot whose wife was from an alternate dimension could possibly manage.
But now he was in Moscow, at the request of a man who was wanted by law enforcement agencies in most of the western hemisphere.
The Young Guns are a book or two all in themselves [Author's note: If I'm as good at this writing lark as I like to think then one day soon they will be]. Jonathan West had achieved notoriety at the tender age of 17 when he, his girlfriend and the mob of ne'er-do-wells he'd picked up somewhere had begun a spree of freelance prison breakouts in Great Britain. Their more widely published exploits included wrecking a death row in Louisiana (the US government had quietly dropped pursuit of the various warrants for their arrest when it was discovered that only one in five of the inmates were actually legally deserving of the death penalty and nearly a quarter were completely innocent; Michael Moore had a field day over this) and breaking up a child-kidnap ring in Russia, where they were now national heroes. Many experts agree -rightly- that they also had a hand in President Putin's dramatic resignation speech; the handgun against his head as he spoke to the cameras was John's sense of humour through and through, at any rate. It is less widely known that the so-called Young Guns were hired by Will's late stepfather for the almighty shootout in the Arctic that finally flattened the Magisterium. They turned up along with a Moscow street gang, an attack helicopter and crew and some former 101st Airbourne personnel to deal with the unpleasant business with Nazis from another dimension as well. They were now acting as go-anywhere, troubleshooting mercenaries jocularly referred to as the J-Team, and running a successful sideline business smuggling would-be immigrants into Britain as well. This last was more of an ideological issue on John's part than anything else, and an unusual degree of effort was being put into ensuring that the passengers arrived in Britain safely and without being found.
Will looked at his watch. "Pickup should be here any minute. I've still got a horrible feeling he'll try to convince us to fly clapped out MiGs and blow stuff up for some Russian gangster with... Oh, that'll be it." A black MPV pulled up near the airport taxi rank, and a man Will didn't recognise got out. "Mark and Elisabeth Ransom? Hi, I'm Eddie Meacom. John couldn't get away to meet you in person; he's negotiating for the loan of some military hardware for a job in Bosnia."
"Bosnia. Right," Will said slowly. Hardline Milosovites were waging a major campaign against the Muslim minority, and the UN response wasn't materialising as quickly as it ought. The major players were dragging their heels about committing troops to stop a war nobody cared about in a country that hardly anybody had even heard of, so evidently the more progressive elements had decided to take matters into their own hands.
The thought of John and his band of loose cannons unleashed on an already chaotic country made Will's blood run cold. This meant explosions, and he'd had his fill of those.
"What does he want us to do?" Lyra asked, raising one eyebrow. Meacom smiled faintly.
"Ever flown a MiG-29?"
Will sighed deeply. "No. No, no, NO. Abso-bloody-lutely... Good God!"
Meacom closed the briefcase full of $20 bills. "John said you'd need a bit of persuasion."
"Well, you've got my attention. Let's go."
They drove to a small warehouse complex outside the city, where the J-Team had their headquarters. It was, incidentally, the very place where the Young Guns had done battle with the Mafia all those years ago. A varied collection of Russian armoured vehicles was parked outside, along with two Hueys.
"So they finally replaced the one that got shot down," Lyra observed. "Who's the new pilot?"
"Isobel. John's in charge of our latest acquisition. There it is now, in fact." Eddie pointed to an Mi-28 'Havoc' gunship that was settling in on the roof of the offices.
"Bloody hell," Will concluded. "What else has he got hold of?"
"Two Ilyushin-76s and an Antonov-124, and four MiG-29s for escort purposes. We're recruiting pilots for those as I speak, and you two are top of John's candidate list. Your old colleague Jack McAllister's number three, and number four is my brother-in-law Yuri; John likes to recruit friends and relatives wherever possible."
Will nodded without really hearing. Can we do this?he asked himself. Can we run the risk of leaving the twins without their parents?Their two children were staying with Dave's parents. The original plan was to name them David and John if they were boys, Mary and Elaine if girls. In the event they wound up with one boy and one girl, named David Jonathan and Elaine Mary Parry respectively. The Ransom surname, adopted as a cover when MI5 were still gunning for everybody associated with the Aurora Borealis, appeared only on birth certificates in this world. Elsewhere it was another matter.
Will didn't want to have what had happened to him happen to his own children; they were growing up knowing BOTH parents, no matter what. However, he was acutely aware that Lyra felt that parents were pretty much dispensable; her own parents were a good example. She'd shot both of them, after all...
The car pulled up, and they got out. A girl with short, spiky black hair waved to Eddie, who smiled back and wandered over. Will exchanged glances with his wife. "Looks like he's under orders -or requests; you know John's leadership style- to leave us in peace."
Trish came running up to them. "Will! Lyra! It's been too long!" Hugs and kisses were exchanged. "Come on in. The others are in conference with our contact in Bosnia, 'cept for John; he's been to collect his new toy."
"Only difference between a boy and a man..." Lyra replied wryly. "So, what's the story behind this Meacom guy? You guys usually keep things in the family."
"Oh, he's one of Anya's buddies. Quite romantic, really; he fell for a girl trying to gain asylum because her family were in trouble with the Mafia, and went with her when she was deported. We came across him when Putin got the push; it was him holding the gun on TV, in fact. He and John both decided to declare war on Blunkett's asylum policies at about the same time, so we pooled our resources and put him in charge of organising it; damn, but he's handy at that part! Tatiana's family are almost all in the military so he's got us some ex-Spetznaz guys, real professional hard bastards, doing convoy security. The local syndicates've taken a few cracks at our operation, plus there's the police and Customs people of about five different countries to worry about."
"Still fighting the establishment, huh?" Will laughed.
"Only the parts that don't remember who backed them up five years ago," Trish replied.
They strolled into the building, to find an air of controlled chaos. People were shifting boxes of stuff around and arguing over pieces of paper in Russian. Phones were going off every few seconds. Over it all, somewhat incongruously, Will could clearly hear a small child whining about something or other. It abruptly ceased, and he glanced over. John and Isobel's five year-old daughter Chloe had been effectively gagged by somebody shoving a huge lump of Cadbury's Dairy Milk in her mouth. Charlie gave them a thumbs-up. Lyra rolled her eyes.
"Sure you want HIS kids?" she said to Trish.
"Don't knock it, it works," Will said with a faint smile.
"William Thomas Parry!" Lyra glared at him, and he wilted visibly. John appeared at this point.
"Hey, guys. Good to have you on the team again."
"We haven't signed up yet," Will pointed out, shaking hands with his old friend. "The cash IS an incentive, though."
"Thought so. Jack signed on in half a second, of course; says he's bored after five years without even a little war." Will sighed. Typical Jack. Wonder what Carrie-Anne thinks of this?Jack had eventually succeeded in getting into his gorgeous Welsh copilot's underwear not long ago. "He's in the conference room with the other pilots. We'll explain the full details in there."
Jack was tipped back in his chair, coffee mug in hand and arguing the relative merits of the Joint Strike Fighter -his usual mount in Fleet Air Arm service- versus the new MiG 44 with a man that Will presumed to be fighter pilot number four. He jumped to his feet.
"Ha! I KNEW John'd think of a way of getting you in on this!" He laughed. "Great to be working with you again, pal!"
"Hey, we haven't signed on yet," Will warned. "And what would Carrie-Anne say if she knew you were doing this?" Jack winced.
"Well, I'm in for the sheer nogalstia of it all," Lyra said firmly. "I reckon it'll be a good laugh." They looked at him expectantly for a while.
Will sagged in defeat. "Okay, okay. I'm in, God help me!"
John gave them a brief outline of what they would be doing. "There's a little town called Brestograd -don't; I've heard all the gags- where government-loyal regular army forces and the local Muslim minority population are fighting a losing battle against Milosecvic's old pals. A Colonel Petrovic contacted me and asked for all the support we could provide; he offered me all the money his townsfolk could scrape together, but we're doing this one pro bono publico. The idea of massacring people because they're different appalls me, and always will. Through contacts made after Operation Eviction Notice eight years ago, I've got hold of enough military hardware to hold off half the Serbian army and the means to get it to where it's needed. We have a trio of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, a T80 main battle tank, three assorted helicopters and four Fulcrum-D fighters with all the bells and whistles. I'd have liked to get hold of a couple of Su-25s for close air support, but they haven't got the range or air-to-air capability to escort the transports, and we haven't got enough pilots to have separate ground attack and dogfighting types anyhow.
"There's a disused runway about thirty miles from Brestograd, where we'll offload our equipment. The Fulcrums can easily stage out of there, and our fuel and weapon caches can be stored there. Our ground assets will be reinforcing the defenders of Brestograd until the Russians can organise a peacekeeping force to relieve us. We can expect repeated attacks and near constant artillery bombardment, so this one's going to be tough. Questions?"
"Can we expect an attack on the airstrip?" Will asked.
"Brestograd's between it and the enemy, so we should be able to intercept any assault directed against the base. Chances are they'll try, though. Lizzie?"
"How big are friendly and enemy forces?" John looked faintly rueful.
"Friendlies on the ground right now number perhaps a hundred fighters. We have about two hundred embarking with us, not counting vehicle and helo crews, medical and service personnel. Ranged against us is a whole mechanised battalion; tanks, armour, attack choppers and about a thousand troops. We'll still have one crucial advantage, though. Air power." The fighter pilots beamed. "We leave in two days."