OR2-EP1: Perun Awakens (11)

Citizens of the United States living across the ocean usually don't really care about the kinds of events taking place in the rest of the world, and their opinions don't drive the President or the Congress to do what they want; the President has his own complete set of logic, and the solutions to deal with problems are long overdue for the think tanks. Sometimes the president's foreign strategy seems to be in line with citizens' expectations, but it is just an opportunity for him and his staff to appeal to the public and increase their approval ratings. With so much international news happening every day, most people can't stay on top of an event on a consistent basis with the wave of information that hits them. Only breaking news with enough impact can instantly capture the attention of the majority of viewers, especially if it is of a tragic nature. Therefore, when the citizens of the four major time zones of the United States of America saw on the news reports in the morning that there had been a kidnapping in Ukraine targeting foreigners, they couldn't help but twitch inwardly. They were the ones who couldn't see their compatriots lose their lives in unknown circumstances abroad, and it looked like the President had an obligation to save these unfortunate citizens from the devil.

Various strange symbols hung on the background wall of the screen, and taking up more than half of the screen was a black and red flag with the Rurik insignia painted on it. Several young men in jackets stood in front of the camera, and with solemn faces were announcing to the world their latest actions and denouncing all the foreign rabble-rousers who were doing mischief on Ukrainian soil.

"NSDAP copycats in poor taste." Corporal Randal, who had returned to his room with the bread, looked at the OUN spokesmen on the TV screen and commented dismissively. Three of the other four were in the room together watching the news about the kidnapping that had just occurred, and McNeil had gone out to explore the area. The neighborhood was just too dangerous, he said, and it was important to find a road that was safe enough in case they needed to escape right away someday.

The thought of McNeil asking him the other day what the NSDAP really was made Corporal Randal suspect that McNeil hadn't even taken a history class.

"The only one I can see in the world who can sing the praises of butchers and executioners whose hands are stained with the blood of their fellow man." Sgt. Salas, who was looking up information, had no previous knowledge of the history of Eastern Europe, and when he flipped through some of the news reports related to the OUN, he immediately labeled the organization as crazy, "The Krauts were not at all soft when they slaughtered the Ukrainians back in the day, and they shamelessly hold an event every year to glorify the German's great deeds. "

"It's not to be wondered at, they'll use any means of propaganda they can against the Russians, even if it means making a deal with the devil." Tom was sitting on the other side playing a game, he and Corporal Randal had recently clashed again, starting when both sides accused each other of hogging the network by playing the game causing high latency on their side. The Corporal immediately went to Captain Shields for a comment, and was not surprised when the Captain reprimanded him severely. The Captain intoned that every dollar Randal recharged to a foreign game would be a bullet for a foreigner to shoot at an American citizen.

Despite Randal's attempted rebuttal that entertainment knows no boundaries, he voluntarily concedes defeat in the face of the Captain's authority. The Captain's standard of judgment was simple; Tom was playing a game produced by a company native to the United States, and was certainly more deserving of support. This strange method of judgment had Sergeant Salas calling it straight from the inside, and it looked like he had found a good way to educate his offspring. With the farce over, they gathered peacefully in the same room to continue watching the news. The incident had occurred in the middle of the night yesterday, when a group of OUN militia had attacked a Kiev city hotel and kidnapped all the foreign nationals (mostly Americans) staying there. The hotel, which is about a few thousand meters from where they were, has been in the limelight lately. Some good Ukrainian journalists had filmed some of the foreigners meeting with various power leaders in Kiev in the hotel and believed that this was a foreign organization giving orders to the relevant forces in Kiev through their proxies. The prolonged famine, restrictions on living goods and military defeats had brought the citizens' discontent to a peak, and some radical OUN armed groups decided on the spur of the moment to detain the ill-intentioned foreigners. The hotel security guards gave up resistance after two of them were wounded by the other side, and most of the foreigners were taken under control in their sleep and rounded up in a few places where they could be easily guarded. A few of the foreigners attempted to escape to the top floor of the hotel and boarded a helicopter, but the helicopter was shot down by OUN militia with rockets just as it took off, leaving none of the passengers alive. Subsequently, instead of trying to brush off responsibility, the OUN militants, who had won a complete victory, took the blame and made a diatribe-like speech with honor.

"... It has been more than fifty years since we expelled the Russians and gained total independence, but the expected prosperity and stability has not come." The young man sitting in front of the camera expressed his hatred for all foreign powers with exaggerated gestures and tone of voice, "The reason for this is that we have never completely removed the assholes who control the lifeblood and enslave all Ukrainians in Ukraine. Under the manipulation of these people, we did not hesitate to accept foreign kleptocrats and scoundrels to come to us to enjoy high positions of power and to give away valuable resources for nothing to so-called foreign friends in order to curry favor with them. Until last year, even when there was a massive famine in our country and thousands of people starved to death alive, these guys who have only foreign countries in their hearts and not Ukraine still insisted on providing most of their food and agricultural products to foreign countries, in the name of preserving the normal functioning of the international economy ..."

Capt. Shields was tapping away at his keyboard next to the TV, the laptop in his hand that he had snagged from the store two days earlier. Sgt. Salas joked at the time that they had caught the once-in-a-century zero-dollar rush and could take whatever merchandise they wanted without fear of punishment. Order had broken down in Kiev and even half of Ukraine, and no one had the ability to hold them accountable. The Captain tries to find out the details of the kidnapping by intercepting communications and hacking into people's computers, just in case there is someone important among these kidnapped foreigners, and the time has come for them to show their hand. Everyone is worried about how to find a plausible excuse to explain the escape, and another challenge is how to appropriately reappear in the army's sights without arousing any suspicion. They needed a chance to play the hero, was the conclusion McNeil concluded.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Michael McNeil walked into the room carrying a couple of packages, looking a little tired.

"Next time you guys should follow me on a robbery, I'm limited in what I can do alone." He set the merchandise down on the floor, hung his gooseberry-stained coat on a nearby coat rack and carefully cleaned off the remaining snowflakes.

"Gangs are prone to conflict, two groups of guys who split the loot got into a fight at a nearby bus stop yesterday and one of them got his brains smashed in." Tom said without looking up, "Besides, you're much more efficient at operating on your own, and I can't see anyone better at these jobs than you."

McNeil didn't move to get behind the Captain and saw the black screen filled with all sorts of strange strings. He was just a commander, not a communications officer nor a cybersecurity builder, and the extent of his knowledge of computers and other devices was limited to using them for office work. Captain Shields had decided a short while ago that having a computer would be beneficial for them to keep up-to-date on some of the breaking news more quickly, and McNeil and Sergeant Salas had quickly gone outside to snag a laptop for him to use - the tablets they carried were military devices suitable only for combat, with extra functions consisting of, at best, reading the news.

"Anyone important?"

"You should be patient, McNeil." The Captain was in the process of determining the address of the device in that hotel, "Given the temperament of these people, if they find out that any of the kidnapped foreigners are among the big names they can use to make a deal with, they'll soon get carried away and come forward with their demands."

Half an hour later, Captain Shields had taken control of one of the hotel's computers and accessed all the recent entry and exit records. The data compilation was handled by McNeil, who quickly identified the names of those who had remained in the hotel after the attack was launched, some of whom may have died during the OUN's strong-arm assault, and hoped that their deaths would not have unthinkable consequences.

According to OUN's statement, they let all the Ukrainians go during the attack, leaving only the foreigners behind. Of the hundred or so foreigners held, 87 were Americans, and 52 of those 87 were ordinary civilians with no background. McNeil couldn't figure out why these people would be traveling to Ukraine in the middle of a war; perhaps human nature includes risk-taking and a blind impulse that borders on moths to a flame. Nineteen of the remaining 35 were legally credentialed journalists who, oddly enough, did not work for any of the well-known media outlets in the United States itself, but seemed to be loyal to a lesser-known independent media organization in the south. Curious about this, McNeil told Tom, who was still playing the game, to look up the company's public information, and the results only deepened his suspicions. Founded in 2024, this company was as invisible as a person, and since its inception there had been no reports on the Internet related to its economic activities. Only a secret association organization would not wish to attract public attention; more exposure would bring more opportunities along with risks.

"Interesting, this guy runs a PMC." Captain Shields pointed to a photo displayed on another screen, "I originally thought that after losing money on his business in the Middle East he would try to find a way to go to South America to open up new markets, but I can't imagine that he's still plunged headlong into Eastern Europe ... He probably doesn't realize that under high intensity warfare PMCs simply aren't enough to make the war machine's lubricant."

"Could those guys who died because of the helicopter crash be him and his associates?" Tom suddenly thought of something.

"The OUN hasn't released information on the dead, supposedly because the bodies were so badly mutilated that they couldn't find any identifying features." McNeil spread his hands helplessly, "Of course, I'd rather believe they're afraid of offending a large group of potential rivals by making the truth public."

The strange box they had snatched up days ago contained two items shaped like the tasers used to resuscitate patients in hospitals, with handles on them. No one knew what the items were for, and Sergeant Salas offered to take pictures and upload them to the Internet for knowledgeable netizens to judge, but McNeil dismissed the idea and worried that recklessly revealing their holdings and whereabouts would draw them in with rather dangerous enemies. They decided to keep the box in safekeeping, as its contents might come in handy at some point, and the OUN wouldn't send an armed militia to escort inconsequential equipment or items for no reason.

Several other citizens of the United States were a bit of an embarrassment. Captain Shields had found an opportunistic businessman who had spent several years ago in the UK promoting environmentally friendly building materials and using extortion to crack down on manufacturers who wouldn't buy the products, and by the simple method of getting hooligans disguised as environmentalists to come to his door and cause trouble. Most companies chose to let the matter rest, not wanting to spend too much money on additional lawsuits, but the opportunist later hit a brick wall in Scotland: the other side sent commercial spies to infiltrate his company and found evidence that he had cut corners on his products. The Scotsman's ungrateful behavior angered the businessman, and the public later suspected that he had resorted to violence in the confrontation, as the Scottish business owner's parents had died in a strange fire a few days later. This out-of-the-ordinary behavior eventually caused widespread discontent, and the speculative businessman fled back to the United States in disgrace, leaving only a few able assistants to handle his business in England in his place. This time he came to Ukraine, probably with an eye on the reconstruction of Eastern Ukraine after the end of the war, yet no one would have imagined that the deterioration of the war situation would not only put the dreamland of making a fortune to rest, but even directly threaten their lives.

"This may be the only figure that could possibly cause a congressman to intervene." Captain Shields displayed the last man's profile on the screen, "His father is a senator and has always been a hawk on the outside. Now that Senator Curtis's son has been kidnapped, he's sure to find a way to punish these miscreants and get his son out unharmed."

The kidnapped citizen of the United States is Wyatt Curtis, whose father, Senator Curtis Sr. was a businessman who started out as a businessman and used his financial resources to enter politics and become successful. Curtis Jr. was already a titular director of his father's company at a young age, and he started out at a level that many would never reach in a lifetime. It's always wise to leave a path for future generations, whether it's politics or business, you can guarantee that you will be able to feed and clothe yourself. It was simply impossible to get rich working for someone else, and no boss would allow his men to surpass him in his own company.

"Another young master who is making a fortune on the back of his father's patronage." Sergeant Salas sighed helplessly.

"Ugh, if only I hadn't suffered a fiasco in the stock market ..." Captain Shields whispered, quickly recovering. He didn't want to bring up his own financial failures; there were countless investors who had lost their homes to the point of jumping to their deaths, and whether or not he had joined them was irrelevant. Since stocks had fallen faster than those suicides had fallen, tenaciously continuing to live was the biggest challenge, at least according to Captain Shields. As such, he couldn't see past McNeil's thoughts and was intrigued by McNeil's way of thinking. While the other three companions bore strong marks of place, McNeil seemed to be a foreigner through and through. No, McNeil was indeed an American, and his way of thinking could not be faked, but the attitude that would seem to perpetually place perspective outside of the earth made Captain Shields wonder from time to time if McNeil was a spy employed by some secret agency. The man had too much time for his mind to be cool, and ordinary people don't stay restrained and sane forever.

McNeil began to conceptualize his new tactics. They were going to take the initiative to meet the challenge, and there was a ready-made opportunity in front of them. The OUN had been funded by the United States in the past, but when it openly kidnapped citizens of the United States, the partnership between the two parties ended for good. Without the support of the United States, it was still uncertain whether OUN would be able to successfully take control of Ukraine. McNeil doesn't know what kind of foreign attitude this Congress possesses, and he judges from some of the news reports and flag changes that the general mindset of Congress is to shrink back to the homeland-there are a number of members of Congress who believe that the United States' actions around the world are meaningless to the United States' own interests, and only benefit allies who don't necessarily live up to their end of the bargain. OUN's backtracking is in these people's eyes the best evidence to convince the public to support the abandonment of a globally proactive strategy, and the fact that many of the organizations that the United States has supported overseas over the years have ended up turning against itself is proof enough that indirect meddling and gamesmanship is a failure, and that direct, all-out war is even less in the United States' interest.

Captain Shields informed McNeil, slightly apologetically, that he had no control over the security cameras and other equipment in that hotel for the time being.

"That's okay, it's enough."

There was no disagreement in the crowd as to whether or not to intervene in the matter. The worst that could happen was just escaping Kiev or being captured by the enemy, they were already lucky not to have died on the battlefield of the Eastern Front, and there was nothing to lose by returning this life, which they had picked up by chance, to God. Before launching preparations for the operation, a pressing problem was the reinforcements, who could not single-handedly break through the OUN blockade and rescue the hostages held in the hotel. Thinking only of rescue and not retreat, they could indeed do it, but the route of retreat was bound to be treacherous, and the OUN would do everything in their power to prevent the chips from getting out of their grasp. Once a hostage died in the crossfire in the process, regardless of what happened to the OUN, none of the five of them could escape public criticism or prosecution from the military.

"It would have been for the best if we could have gotten full control of the hotel's electronics before the operation." McNeil looked at the design Captain Shields had figured out on the screen, "The OUN is understaffed right now, and they're trying to wreak havoc on the city on one hand, while having to go toe-to-toe with the military and police, who are still loyal to the President, on the other. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, change into OUN militia uniforms and sneak in through the underground parking lot."

"Wait, none of us speak Ukrainian, and as soon as we hit a checkpoint halfway, they'll notice the anomaly." Tom hastened to point out the problem.

In fact, Captain Shields was the only one of the five who spoke Ukrainian, but he also only knew a few simple everyday phrases and had a very strange accent. According to McNeil, that Ukrainian sounded as uncomfortable as Indian English. Sergeant Salas did speak Russian; however, Russian had become a big taboo in the Ukraine, and anyone who spoke it was instantly targeted.

"They can't be that serious, can they? The only people left who still have the guts to take to the streets are members of their own organization." Corporal Randal looked like he didn't realize the seriousness of the situation.

"After we attacked their supply storage site last time, the OUN raised their guard and set up checkpoints on many of the main streets to conduct sweeps. Some OUN members were held as suspected spies because they weren't in uniform and forgot some key questions, as usual."

McNeil immediately explained what he had seen on the streets in the last few days, the fanatical OUN could not be analyzed with common sense at the moment. Otherwise, no organization with a modicum of sense would offend another major power that supported them while they were in confrontation with another major power (and not yet in full control of the country themselves). Perhaps OUN is so puffed up with ego that they actually think they can antagonize both the US and Russia and come out unscathed. History has shown that the consequence of offending more than one major power is to be annihilated by each of the originally conflicting powers.

In stark contrast to OUN's rampage is the indifference of all parties. The Russians, who were on a roll in Eastern Ukraine, did not make any statement; they didn't need to be concerned about a Ukrainian power that was already hostile to them, and the more chaotic Ukraine was, the better their chances of a total victory. The United States, on the other hand, held a press conference that evening and urged the OUN to release all hostages immediately, but otherwise made no condemnatory or threatening statements. Neither of the main parties to the raging conflict wanted to be involved, and the other countries didn't need to be, the only country that overreacted was Romania, which had recently been rumored to be taking in the current Ukrainian president, and spent a lot of time explaining that they didn't want to meddle in Ukraine's internal affairs and wouldn't take in a fugitive head of state.

If OUN had appreciated this and released the hostages, that would have been the end of it. However, it seemed that the bad NSDAP copycats were not going to give up, and they seemed to think that they could challenge the whole of Europe or even half of the world with the power of a single country, just like their spiritual idols. By the next day, the OUN released their latest demands, the centerpiece of which was for the NATO forces, led by the United States, to pull out of Ukraine altogether and relinquish control of the country's resources. With the Russians in force, this kind of active break with an ally is tantamount to suicide, and French commentators have been calling the OUN's approach suicidal on their television programs. The United States ignored it, seemingly intent on playing deaf and dumb, and their ostrich mentality was crushed in the face of OUN's next statement: the OUN claimed that if NATO did nothing, they would execute a hostage every hour until NATO agreed to terms. In a sharp turn of events, the fierce dogs bred by the United States of America finally bared their fangs to their allies, an ending those capitol wholesalers did not expect.

TBC

Chapter Notes:

In the C&C and RA universe, the NSDAP is just a small, unassuming German political party with no realistically huge historical influence.

Unfortunately, at most points in human history, trying to get around necessary evil doesn't work.