As soon as he stopped, others quickly moved up and took position.
Far down the twisting bank he could see figures hurrying toward the ambush site. Grisha thought there would be more people than the twenty he counted.
“Dublinnik!” the colonel’s voice shouted. “Sasha Dublinnik! Where are you?”
A woman he had seen at Minto gave him a bolt-action rifle and a box of rounds. He quickly opened the chamber and peered down the barrel before loading. In a moment he was back to the edge of the bank.
He poked his head up slowly and carefully slid the weapon onto the icy ledge. He sensed movement next to him and Malagni whispered, “You get the first shot.”
Grisha nodded and took careful aim at the colonel. There weren’t enough of them at the edge of the bank to kill all the Russians. At least, he decided, they wouldn’t have the colonel to contend with. ?Colonel Yuganin twisted his head about, searching for Grisha, composure and control slipping.
“Sasha Dublinnik!” he shouted again. “Where are you?” His eyes ran along the snowy bank and suddenly locked on Grisha’s face. His mouth dropped open in disbelief before he recovered and turned to scream at his men.
Grisha squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Yuganin in the right side of the temple and blew the left half of his head into a pink splatter. The shot sparked a slaughter.
Murderous fire erupted from the riverbank as well as the ridge on the other side of the road-whipping the column in a crossfire. The sudden barrage startled Grisha into immobility for a long moment. Cossacks and soldiers went down like wheat under a lead scythe.
The Russians didn’t get off a shot. Bodies littered the road, staining the snow red with blood. A whistle cut through the firing and the shooting abruptly stopped.
Two men sprinted out of the brush and darted up to the still-idling vehicles. The middle tank spun around on one tread and began to negotiate its way around the end machine. Another figure dashed out of the trees and scrambled up onto the clanking, lurching weapon. Grisha recognized Wing and an icy hand clutched at his heart.
She screamed something down into the tank. It stopped. She moved back and a pair of hands showed over the hatch rim. In moments the driver stepped out onto the turret, tears streaming down his youthful face.
Another whistle broke across the murmuring convoy and two waves of humanity converged on the tanker and his dead column. Grisha walked over to the colonel who lay face down in the snow and rolled him over with his foot. Even in death what was left of Yuganin’s face radiated arrogance.
Malagni walked up and slapped Grisha on the back. “Perfect. You couldn’t have timed it any better.”
“Any word from Cora? They locked her up.”
“The attack on Chena is already underway, so she must have come through just fine.”
Wing trotted up, a beatific smile curling her scar almost double.
“We did it! We really did it.” She abruptly hugged both men at once.
“Now we have to get back to Chena and prepare for the counterattack.”
“When do we get to stop fighting?” Grisha asked.
“When the Russians surrender,” Malagni said, striding away down the column.
“I don’t think he could live without war,” Wing murmured.
“When I saw you leap onto that tank my heart nearly stopped.” He stared at her strong, proud profile, knowing that if he ever trusted his heart to a woman again it would be her.
“Yeah.” She turned to face him. “I felt pretty good when I saw you get out of that truck. You’re important to me, Grigoriy Grigorievich, don’t forget that. But there’s this thing called war that we gotta get through first.”
“Where’s Nik?”
She glanced at Malagni’s retreating back. “He’s with Nathan at Chena Redoubt.”
“Oh.”
“We haven’t heard a word from them since they began the attack.”
“How long ago was that?”
She finally looked up at him. “About an hour.”
“What about the Russians of the Troika Guard I saw, are we going to finish them off?”
She smiled.
“The only Troika Guards alive at the battle zone had come over to our side. The battle you saw from the helicopter was a charade. But their commander wants to meet you as soon as possible.”
“What’s his name and rank?”
“I think he is a captain by the name of Smolst, do you know him?”
Grisha laughed and danced in a circle.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wing said with a smile. “Catch up with Malagni, you and he are going to take the lead.”
Grisha gave her a level stare. “See you in Chena.”
35
Nathan, Nik, and Haimish, surrounded by a squad of eight nervous, heavily armed soldiers, trotted down the deserted highway toward Chena Redoubt. Shops and homes stood quiet and still in the pale noon brightness. The civilian Russian and
Three men carrying equipment abruptly stepped from between two buildings. The Dena squad leader crouched and aimed at them. The squad followed her example.
“Wait!” one of the men shouted. “We’re friends.”
The squad leader glanced over at Nathan.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Keep them covered, Eleanor,” Nathan said in a low voice. Then he shouted. “What is that you have there, friend?”
The heavily clothed men walked toward them slowly with their hands in the air. One held a bulky object over his head. A thick, short barrel pointed from the front of the thing.
The second man carried a short tube with a knob on one end with wires running from the opposite end to a backpack carried by the third man. The man with the smallest load did all the talking.
“We’re from RepCal Productions!” he said eagerly. “You’ve heard of RepCal, haven’t you?” The three men closed to five meters.
“Stop or you’re dead,” Eleanor said in a flat voice, peering through the sights of her 9mm rifle.
They stopped.
“Look, we’re just up here getting some footage for movie commercials,” the man said quickly, pushing back his parka hood. “We just want to know what’s going on around here. Is this a war or something?”
“Who are you?” Haimish asked.
“Benny Jackson. I’m a producer.” He grinned quickly. “And this is Alf Rosario, my cameraman, and over here—” he patted the man carrying the knapsack on the shoulder “—is Jimmy Scanlon, our sound tech.”
“That’s a camera?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah, top-of-the-line 35mm camera.”
“I saw one of those in St. Nicholas,” Nik said. “They make movies with them.”
“Yeah!” Jackson agreed. “Like the man says, we make movies.”
“Why are you here?” Haimish asked.
“We’ve been traveling all through Russian America getting footage for commercials and maybe a documentary.” Jackson paused and stared hard at Haimish. “You sure don’t sound like the rest of these guys, where you from?”
“That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m here and helping birth a nation.”
“Yeah? Who’s gonna know about it if it isn’t covered?”
