Whatever the reason, whatever their new orders, Perri and Dave could see the soldiers left in Gambell had little interest in keeping up patrols around the town, and even less interest in sitting in sandbagged bunkers out by the airstrip. The only semblance of their former routine were the guards posted at the doors of the school buildings, and the routine trips from the gym to the toilets with groups of hostages. Which was good, because it meant that at least once a day, Perri and Dave could see their families were still ok, even though they must be worried sick not knowing what had happened to their two boys. Perri had been able to confirm his parents and brothers were among the people in the school, so at least they hadn’t been stupid enough to pick a fight or try to run for the American mainland in their little fishing boat. Which by the way, had been destroyed in the American strike just like every other boat in the harbor.
He lowered his scope. “I’m sick of just watching and doing nothing.”
Dave clapped his hands together to keep the blood flowing in the cold late summer air, “Isn’t anything left for us to blow up or shoot holes in man, you know that.”
“I have another idea,” Perri said. “I don’t believe the whole world forgot about us. We need to remind them we’re still here.”
“Americans bombed the shit out of us,” Dave pointed out. “You expect their sympathy now?”
“Not them,” Perri said. “I’m thinking about those guys we met at the Pow Wow in Canada that time.”
Dave knew what he was talking about. The last time both of them had gotten off Saint Lawrence. Two glorious weeks on Vancouver Island in Canada for a meeting of indigenous youth. It was the first time Perri had realized there was a world of kids out there going through exactly what he was going through, and he’d stayed friends with a bunch of them over the years through social media.
“We’ve still got no internet,” Dave pointed out. “So the only calls we can make here are local and there’s no one to call. How are you going to get a message out?”
Gambell’s connection to the outside world was through a satellite internet router and dish up on the town hall roof that used to hook up to their cell network. It was the first thing the Russians took down, and then the Americans sealed the deal when they took out the whole block on which the town hall sat. They might have killed half of the Russian troops in Gambell, but they also made sure it was cut off from the world for good. Or had they?
“Those guys down there, they must have some way to contact their base back in Russia, right?”
“You’re going to call Moscow, ask them for help?” Dave joked. “Hey, come and save us from those crazy Americans? Oh wait, you were already doing that? My bad…”
“No you dick. I’m thinking whatever radio they have, it must hook up to a satellite somewhere. Maybe we can use it to get online. Like a mobile hotspot.”
Dave stood and winked, “OK, let’s just go ask them eh? Excuse me shithead invaders, got a radio we can borrow?”
Perri stood too, “Sure. Or, how about we just go out to the airfield where there are about a dozen smashed up Russian trucks, cars and ATVs and see what we can find?”
It turned out a razor sharp, needle-thin fragment of shrapnel had entered the Spetsnaz Captain’s skull just beside his eye, traveled right through his brain and then left his head at the back making a pinhole-sized exit wound.
It had turned him into a walking Dostoyevsky quotation machine, but that was about all he was capable of. Sergeant Penkov had talked more than once about just shooting him to put him, and everyone around him, out of their misery. But in the end they settled for locking him in a classroom and taking him to the toilet twice a day so he didn’t soil himself.
Sergeant Penkov had managed to contact 14th Squadron headquarters within a few minutes of the first American strike, and was told to bunker down and ride it out. When the cruise missiles hit, Private Zubkhov and the poetic Captain Demchenko were groveling under the foundations of one of the houses two blocks from the town hall. The explosion as the ship in the harbor went up was the loudest, nearly blowing Private Zubkhov’s eardrums out. So it was that he hardly heard the town hall strike which had killed most of his comrades.
He’d waited until things stopped blowing up, and then waited some more. He’d learned a few lessons since the ammo dump went up. When he finally emerged from under the house, it was starting to get light, and he was cold, hungry and pissed off at the world. His pique lasted until he found the first body part out on the street. He found his way through the wreckage of the town to the sound of someone shouting orders, and found Sergeant Penkov organizing search and rescue parties.
So much for food and warmth. He spent three days digging out the wounded and bagging the dead. When he ate, it was cold soup or ready to eat rations. When he slept, it was on the floor of one of the school buildings, shivering under a thin blanket because the bastard engineers had all been killed and no one left alive could get the damaged pumped hydro powerplant up and running. None of the Russians anyway. The locals had refused to help — they seemed impervious to the cold and apparently liked to see their captors suffer. They were probably used to the damn thing punking out on them.
Sergeant Penkov had sent urgent requests to 14th Squadron HQ for evacuation. Denied. Resupply. Denied. Reinforcement? Denied. He was given orders to do what he could, where he was, with what he had.
Private Zubkhov was there when he got this last piece of good advice.
“This stupid village doesn’t matter anymore,” Penkov spat, putting down the satellite radio mike. “If it ever did.” He looked around him at the beaten men who had given up looking at him with hope. Now they just looked at him with resignation. “We’re on our own boys. Ideas?”
“We need to get across the island to Savoonga,” someone offered. “Join up with the 308th, consolidate our strength.”
“We can’t just abandon our post private,” Penkov told him. “I need an operational imperative.”
“What about the civilians?” another prompted. “The American missiles took out our supplies and we aren’t being resupplied. We can’t feed them — either we shoot them or transport them to Savoonga.”
“Can’t drive, we’d have to walk out,” another pointed out. “The locals say there’s no road between the towns, only reindeer trails at best.”
“We can’t take our wounded out that way. We need air transport. Or a boat.”
“You’re right about the civilians and the supply situation. But we’ve got no transport,” the Sergeant pointed out. “And it isn’t going to magically appear. We’re walking out, or we’re going nowhere.”
Private Zubkhov spoke up, “What is the situation in Savoonga? Do they have supplies?”
“I spoke with the commander of the 308th yesterday,” Penkov said. “The airfield is still in our control and the air force is starting to build up, big time. If the Americans are coming we’ll be better off combining our strength and fortifying Savoonga, for sure.”
Zubkhov laughed at that. “Strength? Yeah, right.”
“Can it,” the Sergeant grunted at him. The man was a Muscovite and seemed to have a hate on anyone born east of the Urals. “This is what we’re doing. We’re walking out. We’ll take the locals with us, to show the way. The walking wounded come with us. Those too badly hurt to walk can stay here, with any of the locals who are too old or too weak to make the walk.”
“They’ll cut our guys’ throats the minute we leave town!” Private Zubkhov said.
“If our guys get their throats cut by a bunch of old women and geriatric men, they bloody deserve it,” Penkov said.