Saturday, September 1st, 2017
Cambodia
The Bunker: 'Комната K'
"It's Jake."
The pages were in Russian but according to the date printed in tiny Cyrillic lettering in the bottom right corner, the document had only been printed some three weeks earlier.
Mindy grabbed the papers from Freya and she thumbed through them. There were more photos, left and right mugshots and detailed notes of the boy's injuries – some of which, according to the dates, had been inflicted after he had been taken on the icepack in the Arctic. Mindy was horrified by what she read in the sheaf of papers which formed part of Jake's file. She smiled slightly as she read that a whole week had passed before the Russians had learned that his first name was Jake. But then she read details of his torture and she turned on Priabin.
"Where is he?" she growled, her tone full of menace. "Was he here?"
Priabin did not react and that made Mindy snap. Her first punch took the Russian officer in the stomach while the second struck the man in the right shoulder before her knee rammed up into his nose, audibly snapping his nose and sending blood and mucus spraying out across the now very dusty carpet.
"Where is he?" Mindy growled again.
Priabin smiled through the pain and blood as he sank back onto his backside on the carpet, spitting out a glob of bloody mucus.
"He was here for a few weeks," Priabin confirmed, seeing how much the subject hurt Mindy. "After enjoying our hospitality for a shirt while, we sent him away, about a week ago."
Mindy punched the man in the left shoulder, eliciting a scream of pain as she processed the information: just a week; if they had come earlier. Freya had been reading more of the file but then she suddenly reached the end of the file despite it not being the end.
"The file – it's incomplete," Freya told Mindy. "Lots is missing – including when he left the camp, how he left the camp, and where they took him. His interrogation notes are also missing."
Something was amiss but Mindy could not figure it out as she ran her eyes across everything in the subterranean office.
..._...
Ariana caught it first.
Something was not right about the dark wood panelling over to the left and behind Priabin's desk. The panelling was not uniform: something was sticking out. Freya saw the junior sergeant's eyes darting in the same direction and she moved towards the abnormality. But before either Freya or Ariana could say or do anything, a section of the panelling, about four feet square, opened up two feet off the ground. A burst of gunfire erupted out of the space beyond, the gunman hidden behind the section of panelling which opened towards Priabin's desk. Freya was taken off her feet by the 7.62-millimetre bullets which stuck the left side and front of her body. She screamed once but then made no further sound as her body fell to the carpet. Ariana brought her SIG Sauer MPX carbine around and returned fire but she was not in a good position and several bullets struck the open section of panelling but the rest thudded into the panelling above and around the opening with at least one bullet striking somebody inside. Ariana dived behind a substantial looking chair as more gunfire erupted from the opening and three men emerged, one of whom wore the rank of a first sergeant while his two men were junior sergeants. All wore the standard battledress of the Russian Army and were armed with AK-74U carbines which spat accurate gunfire. Then one of the junior sergeants threw out a pair of Zarya-3 flash-bangs which detonated with a massive flash and a deafening blast of sound which reverberated around the concrete bunker.
Almost everybody had dived down behind Priabin's massive desk the initial blast and shockwave was not too bad but the reverberation caused intense disorientation but they had all closed and covered their eyes before the flash which at least gave them some minimal situational awareness as they brought their weapons up and around towards the threat. That 'almost' did not include Joshua and the junior sergeant. The flash had caught Joshua as he had fought to keep control of his prisoner. The junior sergeant had elbowed Joshua in the face and despite his plasti-cuffed hands, he had managed to wriggle free of Joshua's grip. The man ran towards his colleagues and when Joshua tried to follow, he was struck twice on his body armour. Chloe moved to intercept but a stream of bullets made her change her mind and she resorted to firing off bullets in the man's direction even as he dove to the ground past where Dave and Mindy were out of position to do much about anything. Ariana, though, was able to put a bullet into the man as he scrambled into cover behind a colleague at the open section of panelling.
But apart from a grunt of pain, the man clambered into the opening and vanished.
..._...
Amidst the chaos, Mindy leapt up from her crouched position behind the desk and she took a calculated chance as she vaulted into the air.
Surprising the two men using the open section of panelling as cover, Mindy slammed both of her feet into the panelling. The inertia from her strike, shoved the heavy door into the right side of the closest man, knocking the weapon from his hands and crushing his body as the door slammed shut before bouncing back a few inches. Mindy struck the carpeted floor in a perfect roll dissipating her inertia as she came back up and flicked a pair of vicious ninja stars into the second man's throat. Even as a flood of blood exploded out from the severed carotid arteries, Mindy darted forwards and she stabbed the first man in the heart with her Tanto, putting him out of his misery.
"Messy bitch!" Joshua growled as he pulled open the panelled door and stepped past Mindy's kills.
Mindy actually grinned, pleased to have Joshua back in the fold with his dry British whit. Then she turned her attention to what was revealed as the door opened. Behind the well-made door which had blended perfectly into the panelling was a circular tunnel through the concrete structure of the bunker. The tunnel was lit and extended approximately thirty yards before it turned ninety degrees to the right. About five yards in, the third man lay in a pool of blood – Ariana's bullet had struck home, killing the man.
"Freya's hurt," Chloe advised as she checked on the girl who was out cold on the carpet.
"I'm afraid the Major has had it – she caught a Russian bullet," Dave said with zero emotion. "I feel sorry for the bullet."
"Let's get after that bastard!" Ariana said.
"This tunnel comes out somewhere," Mindy said to Chloe. "Get back up top and see if you can find out where. Take Josh."
With that, Ariana and Mindy leapt up into the tunnel. Dave delayed half a minute to wave two Royal Marines towards Priabin, the senior sergeant, and Freya. He then followed Mindy and Ariana into the tunnel, just losing sight of the pair as they turned the corner up ahead. Then Dave heard the staccato rattle of a machine gun, more specifically, a Russian weapon. He began to run which was not all that easy as the tunnel was only about five feet in diameter. He paused as he approached the bend, carefully peering around the corner but then pulling back smartly as several bullets struck the concrete around him. He heard more gunfire – Ariana and Mindy returning fire. He heard Mindy yell out something which he could not quite make out as her voice echoed inside the concrete tunnel. Then he heard a bang, like a hand grenade but no, it sounded more like metal against metal followed by the sound of . . . a cave in!?
Dave moved past the corner and found a further tunnel, some forty yards in length which ended in . . . a cave in! The ceiling had collapsed into the tunnel and Dave could just make out what had to be a steel watertight hatch half buried in the debris. His learned eye recognised an explosive detonation which had brought down the roof. The tunnel was obviously an escape tunnel and was fitted with explosives to thwart anybody attempting to follow or, indeed, to thwart anybody attempting to break in via that route. But more important than that was no sign of Mindy nor of Ariana – which was a blessing, but with the way blocked, Dave could not pursue and would have to go back up the elevator. He turned and ran back down the concrete tunnel to where he emerged into the subterranean bunker and he updated Captain McFadden on the situation.
He raced for the elevator which was being inspected for booby traps by specialist Royal Marines, so it was back to the vertical steel ladder for the climb up to the surface.
Beyond the Panelling
Mindy and Ariana had moved cautiously towards the first corner.
Size-wise, they could move swiftly along the concrete tunnel due their short stature. At the corner, they paused. They could hear feet on concrete and Ariana peered around the corner. She saw the junior sergeant some forty yards away, pulling open a steel hatch. Beside the man, a small pack sat on the concrete. Ariana opened fire first, the bullets striking the steel hatch as it swung open towards them. The junior sergeant grabbed up his AK-74U and fired off two short bursts before the weapon locked on an empty magazine. The junior sergeant grabbed the pack and dived through the hatchway, pulling a length of cord from a device attached to the tunnel ceiling as he did so.
"Move it," Mindy hissed, "before we lose him."
The two young women ran at the steel hatchway which was beginning to close as the junior sergeant pulled at it but Ariana got their ahead of Mindy and she spun the locking wheel which extended the latches and prevented the hatch from locking. Instead, the heavy watertight hatch rebounded against the rubber seal and swung back open. Beyond, the junior sergeant gave up his attempt to secure the hatch knowing that anybody following him would perish in the next few seconds. However, the two young women were too fast and with just a glance at the digits counting down, Mindy shoved Ariana through the hatch and into the tunnel beyond. Mindy swiftly closed and dogged the hatch shut before she turned to Ariana.
But before either of them could register what was around them, an explosion from beyond the hatch made the ground shake all around them.
The Surface
Dave found the battle all but over with small skirmishes underway in various corners of the camp.
It was still dangerous and the perimeter was not secure but it would not be long until it was. Dave grabbed a couple of items from a weapons cache and he headed into the jungle. An order had gone out to the Apache helicopters to be on the look out for personnel in the jungle to the east of the camp beneath the trees. Their FLIR turrets were sensitive enough to detect the heat generated by a human even amongst the humid jungle backdrop. Chloe and Joshua were heading east at speed on foot, searching the jungle and awaiting some guidance from the helicopters circling above the camp. They stopped two hundred yards into the jungle to allow Dave to catch up. Then they moved off, the three of them line abreast and six feet apart – any further apart and they might miss something. About eight minutes later, Chloe, out on the left end of the line, stopped dead and signalled to Dave and Joshua to pause. She had heard something ahead and to the left. It was the sound of pounding boots on muddy ground; somebody was moving as fast as the jungle would allow.
"I have movement, eleven o'clock!" Joshua whispered as he looked through his NVGs in the direction Chloe had indicated.
Chloe took off at speed, leaping over obstacles, her own jungle boots pounding on the muddy ground as she closed the gap on her adversary. She could see fleeting glimpses of a man in the semi-darkness and knowing who it was spurred the seventeen-year-old girl on. Branches of trees slapped against her helmet and face but she ignored it all as she went, her mind and eyes focussed on the enemy, her assault rifle held across her chest and ready to use. But then she heard a sound, a sound which should not have been in the jungle. It was the sound of a gigantic diesel engine starting up but the trees meant Chloe had no idea exactly where the sound was coming from nor how afar away it was. But then she found herself emerging from the jungle onto a muddy track which was hidden from above by the thick jungle canopy high above her. Over to the right, she could see her target running but before she could do anything, she heard an ominous rumbling sound and then the staccato sound of a machine-gun firing and the mud all around her exploded into the air as bullets struck the ground. The sound of tanks moving over their tracks was unmistakeable and frightening. Chloe grimaced as she realised she had found the at least one of the two elusive T-55A main battle tanks.
The co-axial 7.62-millimetre machine-gun ripped out and moved left to right as the turret of the tank shifted to bracket Chloe and then the searchlight mounted to the right of the D-10T 100-millimtere rifled main gun snapped on and caught Chloe as she crouched low. Instantly, she fired off her assault rifle at the light, the bullets simply bouncing off the armoured glass and the armour of the tank. The tank stopped some thirty yards away and the main gun lowered to point almost directly at her and she heard the clang of a hatch as the tank commander stuck his head out of the turret. The threat was obvious and Chloe rose up, holding her rifle over her head in a clear indication of surrender. She heard another clang of metal and then at the edge of the searchlight, she saw movement and a tank crewman came into view, an AK-74S held up and pointed at Chloe.
She feared going back into captivity again and she casually reached for her fighting knife: she was not going down without a fight.
..._...
Chloe was about to fly at the tank crewman when his head suddenly exploded and she felt hands on her abdomen.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you never to stand in a road and face off against a tank?"
Chloe grinned as Joshua pulled her into the deep jungle on the far side of the muddy track. Looking back, Chloe saw Dave kneeling down in the road, a 'Guided Missile NLAW HE Anti-Tank K170A2' in his hands. With a muted clap, the 115-millimetre diameter missile was soft-launched out of the tube at just forty-metres-per-second and travelled about eight feet before the main rocket motor ignited and propelled the missile to some 200-metres-per-second. It took no time at all for the missile to strike the heavy – for the 1950s – frontal armour. The missile penetrated the twenty centimetre armour at the front of the turret and tore through the tank commander, sending his blood in every direction even before the high-explosive warhead detonated causing a sympathetic detonation of the turret ammunition and...
"Fuck me!" Joshua exclaimed as the night was turned into day as the tank exploded, the massive gun turret flying some two hundred feet into the air like it weighed nothing before it then plunged down into the jungle with a muted thud.
"Move it!" Dave yelled as the second T-55A began to move and raced forwards, its main cannon firing a round which ripped past the team and exploded in the jungle.
However, the cat was very much out of the bag as the unexpected flying turret complete with plume of fire had attracted an observant Apache attack helicopter which had turned towards the fiery remnants of a T-55A main battle tank to then find the blooming heat signature of a massive diesel engine. The gunner locked on his laser and fired off a single AGM-114 Hellfire missile which was arguably worth more than the tank it was about to destroy. The missile raced in and struck the very top of the turret but like any successful action, you had to penetrate before you went off.
Indeed, the crew heard the knock but then they were incinerated as the dual-charge warhead first blew a hole in the light turret armour before the second charge detonated amidst the remains of the three-man crew and caused another impossibly ungainly object to take to the skies for a relatively short up and down flight.
Beyond the Panelling
As for Mindy and Ariana, the pair had escaped the bunker via a system of horizontal concrete tunnels and vertical concrete shafts which ultimately ended in a steel door set into the jungle floor which was expertly camouflaged and would have been al but impossible to find even if you knew roughly where it was located.
Each shaft and tunnel had been short enough – around thirty or forty feet – for their quarry to vanish and there was no return fire from the man indicating that he was possibly out of ammunition but they took no chances which initially allowed the man to push ahead. The tunnels and shafts were hot and very soon both of them were soaked in sweat and their combat equipment was becoming heavier by the minute. Then they had both smelt fresh air – humid, jungle air; but so much better than the damp heat of the tunnels and shafts. They had emerged on the edge of a small clearing and they could see footprints in the mud, indicating which direction the man had fled.
The next fifteen minutes were spent closing on the man who seemed to be struggling with his navigation – or so Mindy had thought – but he seemed to always return to one set course: zero-eight-four degrees. Her mind knew the area and returned a potential destination: Landing Zone Mike. It was large enough for a helicopter to land and had been one of their three potential exfiltration sites during the first mission so long before and was just a mile away. Then had come the sounds of others in the jungle over to their right followed by sounds of engines and then explosions as the night was torn apart by pillars of fire amidst the sound of rotor blades high above. Then they emerged into a tiny clearing with no signs of anyone leaving. Together, they both scanned the trees above, bushes below, and the ground itself. Ariana stumbled and almost fell but Mindy caught her and when they looked to see what Ariana had quite literally stumbled upon, they found what had to be a wooden trapdoor set into the ground, about forty-centimetres by sixty-centimetres. Mindy ripped the trapdoor away and they glared down at the dark hole which led to God only knew what.
It was the end.
The Trapdoor
Chloe and Joshua arrived less than a minute later, having been guided in by an Apache which was circling the area above them.
"Where've you been?" Mindy demanded.
"Chloe was playing with a tank," Joshua responded.
"I was delayed by the same tank," Dave admitted as he emerged from the jungle. "Where is he?"
"Down there," Mindy said.
Their quarry had vanished underground and the only way to catch up with him was to go after him through the very same trapdoor through which he himself had escaped. Ariana was the first to move as she began to pull off her pack, webbing, and weapons, dumping them on the ground a few yards from the trapdoor.
"Give me a damn torch," she demanded as she drew her Glock 17 from the holster on her webbing and checked that she had a full seventeen-round magazine inserted then she racked back the slide back to strip a round off the top of the magazine and into the breech.
Joshua produced an expensive metal MAGLite, passing it to Ariana. "I want that back!"
"Hold on, I'm coming with," Mindy growled as she began to dump her own kit.
Dave was not convinced it was a good idea despite the fact that he knew Mindy enjoyed claustrophobic spaces.
"You know what you're doing down there," Dave asked Ariana.
"I've trained for tunnel warfare."
"I bet you have," Dave growled. "Stay safe – both of you."
Ariana smiled as she checked that her long dirty-blonde hair was securely tied back in a doubled up ponytail and Mindy forced a smile as she could see the anguish in her husband's expression. Joshua checked each girl and ensured that neither carried anything which could not assist them in the tunnels below. They wore just a single layer of combat trousers and shirt with jungle boots and a webbing belt with two spare fifteen-round pistol magazines, a combat knife, and an M50 gas mask. Both girls took a good long drink of water, knowing that they would dehydrate quickly underground as they sweated. Each then pulled on their M50 gasmask and confirmed it was sealed – Vietnam war era tunnels were well known for booby traps of all kinds including gas traps. Ariana and Mindy checked their torches but left them off. Their pistols were fitted with stubby sound suppressors as they could both be temporarily deafened by firing an unsuppressed bullet underground.
Ariana raised a single thumb and Mindy did the same as one by one, they approached the ominous opening and shaft leading below.
The Tunnel
The shaft was not inviting in any way.
Joshua lowered Ariana down inverted, holding her feet. Ariana, pistol pointed downwards struggled to make out the shaft walls as she descended. The wall beside her had foot and hand holds dug into the dry earth to assist with ascent and descent. Her left hand ran over the earth gently to seek out any signs of a boobytrap. Her mind raced with the possibilities of what awaited herself and Mindy underground but she focussed on the moment. Then, with Dave supporting Joshua, Ariana stopped eight inches off the bottom of the shaft. Carefully, she used the muzzle of the suppressor and her other hand to move around the dried leaves and other detritus to identify anything set to go bang should a person set foot at the base of the shaft – she found nothing so checked again with the point of her fighting knife. Still nothing.
Ariana was first and she sank eight feet down the vertical shaft with holes for feet dug into the earth. The vertical shaft was narrow and immediately claustrophobic but the girl shrugged it off as she descended and her jungle boots reached the final foot hold. Carefully, she rotated and dropped down into the small space on her feet. The tunnel opening was ahead of her and about two feet high and two feet across with a curving top. Carefully, Ariana lay on her stomach, torch held out in her left hand but turned off and suppressed pistol held out in her right hand. She crawled forwards, hating the limited vision of the gasmask but knowing it might just save her life.
Mindy waited a few seconds before she descended and followed on, about six feet behind Ariana; the spacing intended should something bad happen and Mindy have to dig out the younger girl . . . or drag her dead body out of the way.
..._...
It was clammy and dark.
Very clammy and very dark. Ariana was forced to make use of everyone of her senses. While her eyes were of little use in the almost total darkness, she made extra use of her other senses; she relied on sound, smell, and what she felt under her hands in the darkness. The tunnel was sandy and stank of sweat and mouldy food. It also stank of death.
The sandy earth ran through her fingers as she gauged what was ahead of her, feeling for booby traps, or worse. Then she felt something with many legs running over her left hand and she cringed at the thought of some massive centipede as it moved on its own subterranean mission. She knew that there were plenty of other nasty critters in those tunnels, some with four legs and some with six, but some with eight, and some, like the centipede, with many more. Some of the critters could bite, some leaving an infected wound behind. Some were poisonous and left in the tunnels to bite the unwary. That also included snakes, half-starved to ensure they would attack any prey that came within reach. She dare not make use of her torch in case anyone or anything saw the light and attacked her from out of the shadows beyond the light. She was moving as silently as she could and hoped to surprise anybody waiting for her arrival. Many thoughts ran through her mind – very few of them good. Was the junior sergeant expecting them to follow him into the tunnel? Did he expect them to find the trapdoor at all? Was he waiting in ambush? Or was he simply making his way through the warren of tunnels to escape capture? Would she survive to return home? Ariana froze as her left hand rubbed up against something harder than the sandy earth.
The sand had been disturbed; when was an unknown, but some wood was uncovered. The wood moved slightly, like it was a plank on some form of hinge. It had to be some form of a trap, probably with punji sticks – sharpened bamboo stakes – pointing upwards to badly injure or kill the unwary. However, Ariana had been trained to build such traps and she had done, several times in fact, so she knew it was a simple matter of bypassing the obstacle by sliding gently over the lethal device.
She waited twenty seconds for Mindy to reach her and indicated the device before she moved on.
..._...
For Mindy, it was a walk in the park and she felt at ease in the subterranean hell hole.
After all, her own father and stuck her in worse places. Indeed, her first tunnel had been when she was just seven. She had hated it but she had buried her claustrophobia once and for all. The closeness of the tunnel was supportive to Mindy and she loved the darkness. There was little in the way of sound as the sandy earth absorbed what there was. The tunnel had a serene feeling about it and Mindy felt quite at home as she crawled after Ariana. After negotiating the trap which Mindy figured was only the first of many, they soon reached a split in the tunnel with a second gaping hole to their left. Neither of them could figure out which tunnel the junior sergeant had used so they split up with Ariana taking the new opening to the left and Mindy continuing down the original tunnel.
After a further twenty yards or so, Mindy found the tunnel floor ending. Her hands found that there were steps heading downwards, steeply. There was little room to turn around but it was advantageous to go down head first to see what awaited her at the base of the steps which had been carved into the sandy earth then reinforced with wooden boards. Slowly, she edged over the drop and slid down gently past four, six, eight steps before she found the flat-ish earth again under her hands. It was a continuation of the tunnel but at a lower level. Mindy expected to find another set of steps leading back upwards, the u-shape of the steps forming a light and sound trap to prevent light and sound finding its way out of the tunnel trapdoor and betraying the tunnel network's existence to outsiders. Miny crept forwards, realising that she could actually crouch now as the tunnel increased in height just slightly before it sloped up slightly and then there was a second set of steps leading upwards quite steeply. Just as she began to climb, the next landing appearing to be a couple of feet over her head, she heard the muted sound of pistol fire. Her trained ear recognised the sharp crack of a Russian-made pistol and the duller thud of Ariana's Glock.
Carefully, her flashlight held up in her left hand and pistol in her right, she inched upwards, peering through the lenses of her gasmask, listening for movement, for anything which might give her a target to aim for with her pistol. Her pistol and flashlight emerged first from the steps followed by her eyes and she then stabbed the button on the flashlight, holding it down in the direction of where she heard a scuffling sound. It was a Cambodian soldier and Mindy snapped off a single suppressed round. The man never saw Mindy and he sprawled to the ground in a messy heap where he died. Mindy emerged into a surprisingly large space equipped with a rickety-looking wooden table with two equally rickey-looking chairs and various items of generic detritus. Four AK74U assault rifles were stacked in a corner besides small packs of kit.
It was obvious that the underground network was in everyday use.
..._...
Ariana had had the misfortune to crawl around a bend in the tunnel and find a man coming in her direction.
It was as much a surprise for her as it was for him and entire seconds passed before either of them reacted to the meeting. Ariana punched the man in the face with the side of her pistol eliciting a yell of pain as he was too close for her to open fire. The man scrambled backwards before falling into an open space not much bigger than a small bathroom. Ariana and the man fired together but both missed thanks to the inability to properly target their opponent in the darkness. Ariana snapped on her torch and saw the man vanish through an opening. She pursued but a few seconds later, she saw a light and heard a muted gunshot before she came face to face with Mindy behind her Glock.
"I ran into the guy in my tunnel," Ariana whispered.
"There must be more down here," Mindy answered. "Let's see where the next tunnel leads."
The next tunnel was partially lit by oil lamps which was nice but the oil which fed the burners stank but it also made for easier movement as they could see what was ahead of them. Together, they crouched down and moved along the tunnel before stopping after twenty yards to negotiate a section of tunnel where the floor and roof almost met, leaving a narrow opening through which to slither.
"I told you not to eat that extra helping of bacon onboard the assault ship," Ariana grinned as Mindy heaved her way through. Mindy scowled at the grinning Predator. "Move it before I forget I'm not supposed to kill little shits!"
Ariana decided not to provoke her own demise so she continued crawling along the tunnel on all fours. After maybe thirty yards, she stopped at three steps going upwards to . . . nothing!
"It must be a hatch," Ariana mused as she ran her torch around the edges searching for boobytraps. "Okay, I have an edge and . . . what do we have here? I have a fire filament heading into the . . . yes, a grenade embedded in the wall. Disconnecting the wire . . . okay, we're safe."
There was just space for the pair to squeeze in below the hatch so that Mindy could life the section of wood leaving Ariana to shoot if she spotted a threat as they emerged.
..._...
The junior sergeant had a short time to kill.
His helicopter ride to safety was about twenty minutes out but he was not overly concerned as he knew that those bastards could never find him. The tunnel network was unknown at least amongst the vast majority of those born long after the Vietnam-era wars in Asia. He felt safe and the intelligence information he had in his pack had to get to safety. He also hoped for a long overdue promotion which his successful escape would surely ensure. He sat in a living space located two levels down from the surface and actually felt safe for the very first time that night. With him were three of the four Russian soldiers who guarded the tunnel network. The fourth was off on patrol and was due back very soon. The underground bunker complex was creepy in his mind and had a musty odour reminiscent of that found in places of death. The lighting was oil-based and the flames flicked creating many shadows which danced around the bare earthen walls carved decades before. The defences of the bunker were formidable but the creature comforts not so much. He was sat at a decades old table, ignoring the throbbing of the flesh-wound inflicted by that rabid bitch, eating a meat sandwich – probably itself decades old he mused – which tasted dry and quite disgusting when he noticed one of the soldiers staring into the shadows which adorned the walls all around them.
"Дьявол джунглей!" the soldier hissed as all colour seemed to drain from his face. "Двое из них!" {Jungle Devil! Two of them!}
Indeed, the junior sergeant turned and he all but shit himself at the sight of two wraiths emerging from the shadows with little resemblance to anything human, except maybe for the suppressed pistols held out before them.
..._...
The three Russian soldiers fell as bullets blew their skulls into fragments and their brains splattered across the earthen floor of the bunker.
The junior sergeant grasped his pack as he dropped his sandwich and he yanked at a tubular device clipped to the side and he raised it high and yelled at the interlopers.
"You kill me, this goes off and you both die."
Mindy and Ariana advanced, ripping off their gasmasks but still aiming their pistols at the Russian soldier. Their eyes followed the wire which led from the handheld device into the pack. It appeared to be a classic dead-man's switch: the junior sergeant released his grip and an explosive charge in the pack would detonate.
"Okay, your move, comrade," Mindy growled.
"Do not follow!"
Ariana and Mindy watched as the junior sergeant and his pack vanished from sight down another tunnel. Mindy looked at Ariana.
"He said not follow, right?"
"Yes," Ariana grinned. "Not like you to obey a bastard like that."
"Exactly!" Mindy growled.
Mindy went after the man with Ariana close behind.
..._...
The small Kazan Ansat-U utility helicopter was settling down into the jungle clearing, being careful to avoid the overhanging branches which could wreck the small flying machine.
It had not been easy for the pilot to find the clearing without exposing himself to the missiles which had blotted two other helicopters from the sky within seconds of launch. He had flown in from deeper in the country, using his small size to blend into the jungle canopy. Almost immediately, a man emerged from the jungle and made the correct signal identifying that he was the one of the passengers they had been sent to retrieve. The pilot had expected five but he knew that events in the military often changed without warning especially when an attack was underway. The pilot saw movement from beyond the man in the uniform of a Russian soldier and a woman appear in foreign military fatigues. He pulled out his pistol and snapped of off four rounds without hitting anything. Then his co-pilot yelled out a warning and the pilot saw another person emerge from the jungle just to his right.
The junior sergeant saw movement to his right even as he ran for the helicopter. It was that bitch! Then 'that bitch' fell as the pilot shot her twice and the body fell to the ground beside the nose of the helicopter. The co-pilot had squirmed out of his seat and had grasped a stowed AK-74S, firing a burst at the first woman who threw herself backwards as the helicopter began to take-off just as the junior sergeant clambered aboard, still holding out his left hand with the detonator in its grasp. Ariana grimaced as she saw their quarry getting away and she felt sorrow seeing Mindy's prone form but then Mindy rose up from the jungle floor, ignoring her wound as she drew her tanto, attached at her right ankle and she swung it swiftly through the air, severing the junior sergeant's left hand at the wrist and severing the communications wire for the explosive charge.
Mindy dropped back to the ground as the rotor blast almost blew her over as the helicopter lifted upwards just a second before the junior sergeant and his backpack vaporised.
The Clearing
The jungle burned furiously in places with entire swathes burnt to the ground around where the shattered remnants of the helicopter had landed.
It was no real surprise to find Mindy and Ariana smack in the middle of total devastation, especially Mindy. Dave and Joshua surveyed the sight before them as Chloe pulled Ariana to her feet before checking out Mindy.
"Where's the junior sergeant?" Dave asked pointedly as he checked over Mindy's wound which was more superficial than anything else but it had to hurt.
"I think his dead-man's switch was faulty," Mindy replied as she scooped up the severed appendage. "Maybe he should get a refund." She added as she dropped said appendage to the ground. "Hope he kept the receipt."
Together, the group headed back down the hillside towards the camp where the massed forces were gathering to exfiltrate from the country and get back to sea before daybreak – at the camp, there was but one further task to complete.
The Camp (or what was left of it)
After being checked out by a Royal Marines medic before Ariana and Mindy redressed with all their kit, Fusion One made a final trip to the central hut and they stood outside the elevator awaiting its arrival.
As the aluminium doors slid open, a pair of Royal Marines pushed a man out of the elevator ahead of them and they handed over custody of Colonel Dimitri Petrovich Priabin, his hands bound behind his back, to Fusion One. For a moment, they all just glared at the man who had caused them so much intolerable pain and humiliation, mostly for fun.
"I will never stand trial," the colonel blustered.
"No, you won't," Dave replied coldly.
"However, due process should be followed before we sentence you," Joshua growled. "Who votes that this bastard is guilty as charged?"
Six hands went up.
"Guilty by unanimous vote," Joshua grinned.
Colonel Dimitri Petrovich Priabin simply shrugged, knowing he was soon to die. But if he was expecting a bullet, he was off by a longshot.
"For the sentence," Joshua continued. "Girls?"
Ariana pulled apart a section of hessian to reveal a window which overlooked a certain place which they had all endured at some stage or another. Together, Chloe and Mindy seized the colonel and they heaved him bodily through the window and they watched as he plummeted headfirst into the putrid steaming pit.
"Eat shit!" they both intoned as Colonel Dimitri Petrovich Priabin sank out of sight.
With that, it was time to leave Cambodia, once and for all.