ARMAGEDDON



When the President announced the American decision to give Russia a reminder of its nuclear capabilities over the North Pacific, Devlin McCarthy was sitting with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Popov. She had requested an urgent appointment with Foreign Minister Kelnikov, but had been told he wasn’t available. At the same time as she was in the Foreign Ministry building, every single member of her Embassy staff with high level contacts was also in meetings with their Russian counterparts, waiting for the media bombshell to drop.
Popov was one of those stereotypical ‘ministry of anything’ bureaucrats, who never added anything to a conversation, but who occasionally nodded, smiled or frowned, meaning his body language was usually more telling than what he said. He was very overweight and if he wasn’t comfortable, began to sweat heavily. If he was angry, his round, smooth face would turn bright red. If he felt he was in a winning position in a discussion, he would audibly smirk like a vaudeville actor. And he had a very annoying habit of speaking in a derogatory way in Russian to his aides, about the very people he was meeting with, knowing that some of them spoke perfect Russian and understood everything he was saying.
The excuse McCarthy had used to call for the meeting was the demand, made that morning by President Fenner, for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Saint Lawrence. Devlin knew the deadline of mid-day was neither practical, nor reasonable - not least because Russia was not acting alone but on behalf of a so-called coalition of nations in the Barents Euro Arctic Council. Popov had spent the first few minutes of their meeting making her aware of this, before advising that in any case, Russia had no intention of complying. He had then commented in Russian to his people, of which there were three sitting like nodding Easter Island statues, that ‘perhaps the dumb Americans should have thought through the consequences before they sank the Ozempic Tsar’. The Easter Islanders agreed.
It was around then when her telephone began buzzing in Devlin’s jacket pocket. “Excuse me,” she said, looking at the screen. “I think I need to take this. The American President is about to make an address to the nation. Shall we watch it together?” She logged onto the video feed and sat her phone on the table between them so that they could all see.
There was sudden consternation among the Russians as one of them suggested they should break off the meeting and perhaps reconvene after the President’s address. Another suggested to call off the meeting completely. By then, it was easier for them to remain and listen, out of fear of missing what the US President was saying.
As phrases like ‘nuclear missile test’, ‘North Pacific’ and ‘all weapons in our arsenal’ began to sink in, Devlin studied Popov carefully. She had seen the text of the President’s address before going into the meeting, so she knew what to expect. The Russians listened in complete silence, but the shock on Popov’s face was not just clear, it was palpable. It emanated from his every pore. Gone were his brash overconfidence, his dismissive asides to his aides. Beads of sweat peppered his forehead after the first few sentences, and by the end of the Presidential address he had reached for a handkerchief to wipe them away.
As the President concluded, Popov stood up, “I must consult with the Minister,” he said and started gathering his papers.
“Please tell him that at this stage, it is just a weapons test,” Devlin said. “What happens next, is in your hands.”
“Just a…” Popov said, biting off his words. But he could not contain himself. “It is a declaration of war! Nuclear war! Has America gone mad?!”
“It was not us who invaded your territory and attacked your air force,” Devlin said, deliberately goading him.
“You… you sunk our freighter, made cyber-attack on our submarine, launched cruise missiles at our legitimate peacekeeping forces. Now you threaten us with nuclear war!” His hands were shaking as he stuffed papers into his briefcase, shaking so badly in fact that an aide took the papers and the briefcase from him.
He really believes it, Devlin realized. The Kremlin propagandists had done their job well. This is how a nation is duped into war.
Now Popov’s look changed from anger to … what? Sadness? “This meeting is over. Someone will show you out,” Popov said. He walked to the door with his people. “Our military will not ignore this provocation. You have just doomed yourselves, and perhaps the entire world.”

*
*

“Lie down, just lie still,” Dave said, kneeling behind Perri, holding him around the shoulders and easing him to the floor of the water tank. Blood stained his shirt just above his belt. “We have to get out. We have to get to into town and get you some help.”
“Check… the guy… outside,” Perri said through gritted teeth.
Dave lay him down and Perri curled up on his side, knees to his chest. Stepping carefully to a bullet hole at eye level on the side the shooting had come from, he peered out.
There was no one there. He saw blood on the ground though. He walked slowly around the tank, as quietly as he could, peering through bullet and shrapnel holes. The Russian had disappeared.
“He’s gone. I think you hit him.”
“You have to get out,” Perri said.
“We both have to…”
“You go,” Perri said. “I can’t move.”
“I can’t just leave you here. You’re bleeding!” Dave said plaintively.
“Bleed worse… if I try to walk,” Perri said.
Dave looked outside again. There was still no sign of the Russian. “I can’t leave you lying here.” What can I do? He crouched and reconnected the radio, fumbling with unfamiliar wires before it came to life.
“Sarge, this is uh, White Bear, Sarge, are you there?” he asked. “Come in Sarge!”
He had to repeat himself three times, when finally the Mountie’s voice came on, “White Bear? This is Sarge. Is everything OK?”
“Yeah everything is fine. Except it isn’t. We ran into a Russian soldier and Perri has been shot. In the guts. What should I do?”
“Dave, are you safe?” Sarge asked. “First you have to get to somewhere safe.”
“I think so, I think the Russian is gone. Perri shot him,” he said.
“Stay on the line, I am patching you through to emergency services,” Sarge said. Perri listened in as Sarge called what sounded like a 911 number, explained who he was and told the paramedic he was dealing with a gunshot wound in a foreign country. He came back on, “OK Dave, putting you through.”
It sounded like Sarge was holding the radio microphone up to a speakerphone. “Dave, is that your name?” a paramedic asked, sounding like he was talking from a fish bowl.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to ask you a lot of questions Dave and for now I just want you to give me short answers,
OK?”
“Yes.”
“Is your friend conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Is he breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“Can he speak?”
“Perri? Can you talk on the radio?”
“Hurts…” Perri said. “Thirsty.”
“He can, but he says it hurts. And he’s thirsty,” Dave said, reaching for a water bottle on the floor of the tank.
“No! Don’t give him anything to drink. OK?” Dave put the bottle back down.
“Yeah.”
“OK. Tell me where your friend was shot.”
“In the stomach, just above his waist.”
“Can you see blood anywhere else? Look carefully.” Dave checked Perri all over.
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you get his shirt open and have a look at the wound for me?”
“He’s all curled up.”
“You need to be careful, but I need you to have a look for the bullet wound and describe it to me Dave. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Just wait.” He put down the radio handset and pulled aside Perri’s jacket, then gingerly unbuttoned Perri’s shirt, his fingertips slipping on the buttons because of the blood. Perri had his arms around his waist and Dave had to lift one away. He saw a small neat hole off to the left of Perri’s belly button, leaking blood. “OK, he’s been shot down near his belt,” Dave said. “Between his belly button and his hip.”
“Is it a hole, or is it sliced open?”
“Hole.”
“Is it bleeding?”
“A bit.”
“This is important Dave. Is the blood pulsing out, or is it just leaking out?”
“Uh, leaking I think. Not really pulsing,” he said. “It’s not really bleeding that much.”
“Is it bright red, or dark red?”
“Uh, a bit hard to see in here, dark I think,” he said. “Wait.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a torch. Shining it on the wound he saw dark red blood leaking slowly out. “Dark. Is that good or bad?”
“Neither,” the man said. “Can you check his back for me, see if there is a bullet wound there too?”
“OK,” Dave checked Perri’s back, rolled him over a little, peeled off one arm of his jacket and lifted his shirt. He winced. “Yeah. There’s another hole, a bigger one, in his side near his hip.” It looked like the bullet had expanded on its way through and the hole at the back looked like something that had been made with an ice pick. From the inside.
“Is he still breathing? Is he still conscious?”
“Perri? How you doing buddy?”
“Still … here,” Perri said.
“Yeah, he is.”
“OK, keep an eye on him, tell me if anything changes in his breathing or if he loses consciousness. You are going to put a bandage around his stomach to get some pressure on those wounds, but not too much. Do you know how to do that? Do you have a wound dressing, or something you can use as a bandage?”
“I guess,” Dave said. “I’ve got some clothes here.”
The paramedic talked him through it as he tore up a shirt, wadded part of it into pads to put over the bullet holes and then bound it in place by tying the strips of shirt into a bandage and winding them around Perri’s waist. As he did it, the paramedic had him check on Perri constantly and give him a better description of where the wounds were. When he was finished, he asked again, “Perri, how you doing man?”
“Been shot Dave,” the boy replied with his jaw clenched, eyes closed.
“He’s still with us,” Dave told the paramedic.
“Right. You can’t do any more right now. You need to get him to a hospital. He may have been shot in the intestines, or he may have been lucky and the bullet has just passed through his dorsal hip muscles, I can’t say.”
“I can’t just ‘get him to a hospital’!” Dave said. “Dude, I am hiding in a water tank in the middle of a bombed out city surrounded by freaking Russian storm troopers!”
There was a pause at the other end. “Dave, I understand. I need you to calm down and listen,” the paramedic said.
Dave took a deep breath. “Ok, ok, I’m listening, but this is no normal hunting accident, you got that?”
“I understand. Your friend is losing blood. He might have internal bleeding too. He might stabilize, or he could go into shock and die. Even if he stabilizes, he will almost certainly have infection, and that can kill him too. If you can’t get him out, you need to bring medical help to him, urgently. Is there a doctor you can go to for help?”
“You don’t understand! The whole town is being held prisoner!” Dave said. “If there is a doctor, he’s Russian. Sarge are you there? Sarge what are we going to do?!”
The paramedic started to talk again, but Sarge broke in over the top of him.
“Dave, you have no choice,” the Mountie said. “You have to go to the Russians and ask them for help.”
“You are kidding me! We blew up their ammo dump in Gambell, we just shot one of their guys.”
“They probably don’t know that. You find them, you tell them you were hiding out in those ruins and you were scared and you shot Perri by mistake.”
“And I’ll be a prisoner, and he’ll be dead.”
“Or they’ll help. There’s a chance. It’s his only chance.”
“Damn Sarge,” Dave whined.
“Go…blubber brain,” Perri said, listening to them.
Dave looked down at him, he was still lying curled up, eyes closed, breathing slowly. “You’re the one got shot, blubber brain,” Dave said. But Perri was breathing more raggedly now, almost panting in short shallow gasps. “OK, ok. I’ll go.” He logged off the radio, took off his own jacket, then worked Perri’s arms into it and pulled it tight around him, zipping it up. With a grimace he pulled Perri’s blood stained jacket on, then put his rifle over his shoulder and patted Perri on the back. “Hang in buddy.”
“Water…” Perri said.
“I can’t man, sorry,” Dave said, moving the water bottle out of reach. “Doctor’s orders.” Then he put a foot on the ladder and began to climb.

*
*



Private Zubkhov watched as the hatch at the top of the water tank opened. He had heard what sounded like a radio conversation within the tank, but was too far away to hear what the Americans were saying. After the exchange of fire he’d crawled away from the tank and hidden himself in a destroyed building about fifty feet away.
That goddamned radio.
It was the second time the American had shot him. This time the slug had buried itself in his upper thigh, tearing through his leg muscle, but luckily missing his artery. He’d scrambled for cover, dragging himself into the ruins on his one good leg before he collapsed. Inside the ruin he’d tied a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding, and checked his ammunition. He had his rifle, five clips, but couldn’t hold it to aim it for a damn. His sidearm and three clips. Not that he could do much with a sidearm from this far away, shooting with his wrong hand.
So he watched helplessly as the American climbed out of the water tank and started down the side, looking around him as he did. Smart guy. Sneaky guy. It had all gone sideways quickly but all he could remember was the guy coming up out of the hatch in the tank and then opening fire on him. He’d returned fire, but had had no idea where to aim and had been shooting with his bad hand so his aim had been wild.
As Zubkhov watched him, the only satisfaction he got was the sight of the blood on the man’s shirt. So, he’d wounded the ba*tard. Not that he looked like it bothered him. The man reached the platform on which the water tank was mounted, threw his rifle down and then jumped down, without any apparent difficulty. Zubkhov lifted up his sidearm and sighted on him as he picked up his rifle. “Bang bang, you’re dead,” Zubkhov said quietly, as the man straightened up, looked around again, and then jogged off toward Savoonga township. He lowered his Makarov.
For the second time, Zubkhov watched as the American soldier escaped. The guy was a freaking Baba Yaga, some kind of unkillable spirit monster.
Yeah? Well, Zubkhov was still alive too. And in what was left of the decreasingly rational part of the mind of Private Zubkhov of 14th Special Purpose Brigade, 282nd Squadron, he was still operational and his mission objective was in reach.
The American had not taken the radio with him.
OK, so he wasn’t going to be able to make it back to Gambell, but his buddy could just as easily pick him up somewhere near Savoonga. Zubkhov was going to get that damned radio if it killed him.

*
*

(C) 2018 Fred 'Heinkill' Williams. To Be Continued.