Robert Thomas - The Bear - Red Star Rising

“You still out here?”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t sir me.” Major Francis ‘Sasha’ Brown let the wooden barn door close quickly behind him. He still wasn’t used to Moscow’s biting cold. “How long are you gonna stay out here?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do.” Captain Ruth ‘Anya’ Garrison slapped a new clip into the Makarov, took her stance as she pointed it down range and squeezed off three shots. She pulled it back and laid it on the board in front of her.

“I don’t think you can get any better. That’s near perfect.”

“Near yes,” Anya said. “But I lost a tournament last year to a snot-nosed lieutenant. First one in three years. I can get better.”

“He was probably just lucky.”

“She,” Anya replied, “was dead on. I’m just about done anyway.” She turned as she leaned on wood rail. She felt like the decrepit barn was ready to fall down. “What do you have in mind?”

“We haven’t talked much, and we’re both Army. Ivan is too, but he’s so young.”

“You’re saying I’m old?” Anya cracked a smile with the remark. It was something she had done little of to this point. “What’s up?”

“You know as well as I do that you can train and train and train, but find yourself in a situation that has nothing to do with your training.”

“It happens.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Sasha slid his hands into his pockets as he looked down the firing line she had been using. “We really have no idea what we’re going up against. We’re training in house to house combat techniques that may not apply to anything that happens. Hell, this could break out in the middle of a street, or a park, or a zoo, or damned near anywhere.”

“Sometimes, you just have to hope for the best. You have to train for the most likely scenarios.”

“I know that. I just can’t help but feel, well, I don’t know what I feel.” He folded his arms and stared into the straw-filled dirt.

“You’re wondering why I shoot so much?”

“The thought had crossed my mind. You’ve been out here more than anyone. And you’re far and away the best shot of any of us.”

“That’s because I practice.”

“You do that.”

“Years ago, when I was just a kid, my dad who was a cop, took me to the firing range. I was probably just ten or so. Not very old, and scared to death of guns.” Anya stepped back and plopped herself down onto a straw bale. She could feel the jagged stems against her legs and the ice that had accumulated on its surface melted into her pants from her body heat. “Anyway, he got me shooting. We lived in a rough neighborhood outside of L.A. But everyone knew dad was a cop, so nobody bothered us, much anyway. So, I practiced. I practiced with pistols, then rifles, and back to pistols again. In my mind, I ran through every scenario I could imagine. I was a cop, I was a cowgirl, I was a bus driver or a teacher. I thought of everything, but I never stepped outside of that range with a loaded gun.” She ducked her head and ran her hands through her short, dark hair. “Then, one night when I was up in my room, there was a loud bang downstairs. I heard shouting and then, a pop pop pop of bullets. I froze. I sat there and peed myself on the bed.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.” She looked up and smiled. “Anyway, I heard my mother scream. Dad was at work. At least I thought. Something told me to grab my gun. To this day I don’t know why I did it, but I loaded a clip into the handle, stuck in out in front of me and started down the hall. The shouting had stopped and all I could hear was my mother whimpering. Then, another voice boomed up the stairs. A man, someone I didn’t recognize was shouting at my dad. He had come home from work for lunch and a punk who he’d once locked up followed him home.”

“Shit.”

“Shit is right. I was petrified, but in that instant, I knew what I had to do. I’d already practiced everything I could think of, but not this. I looked around the corner as this guy stood over my dad who lay on the floor with a bullet in his leg. My mom was crying on the couch, her hand smeared red. This guy starts laughing, holding his gun in the air. Then he pointed it at my mom. That was all it took. I stepped around the corner, took my stance and put three bullets in his back. My dad crawled out from under him a moment later.”

“Wow.”

“No, training. We train for what we think might happen, where we think we will be when we need it. But we can’t practice for everything, so we practice for anything. It’s more important to train to trust each other, to know how each of us will react under stress. That’s why we train.”

Sasha sat wide-eyed against the post.

“You hungry?” she asked? “I’m starved. Let’s go get something to eat.”

The sun was beginning to set as they approached the farmhouse, and even though the biting wind helped to push them along, the lingering light told them that spring was on the way. Though they had only been in Moscow a few days, it was obvious the days were getting longer. Not by much, but longer. Sasha pulled open the door as the light from the mudroom leading to the kitchen splashed out into the muddy snow.

“I figured you all would be fork-deep in dinner about now.”

“Oh, it’s cooking,” Polina replied. “We’re just looking over some maps of Moscow.”

“Escape routes.” Donald looked up from his seated position. The others were standing around him hovering over the table.

“Escape from where? Isn’t it hard to plan exit routes if you don’t know where you’ll be?”

“To some extent, Anya. However, in a city, there are certain ways around that.” Donald pointed to an area above the Kremlin, then east. “What you have to do is to find common arterial routes that you can make for. You divide the city into quadrants. First, find your way out of the quadrant to the arterial route. Then, you can slide off to anywhere you want to go.”

“I see,” Ivan said. “So, if we were here, we can simply jump on to this thoroughfare and take it as far as we needed before getting off to the farmhouse.”

“Yes, if the farmhouse is where you’re going.”

“Why wouldn’t we be coming back here? We have a plane.” Ivan suddenly looked confused.”

“The farmhouse is the last place you’ll want to come. The plane is a last-ditch effort. You all have passports and travel documents. It’s easier to leave on your own than in a group. Groups get noticed. Another reason why all of you speak Russian. You can blend in.” Donald looked up to Ivan as he towered above the others. “Well, almost all of you. You’re kind of hard to miss, Lieutenant. You would have been my last choice for such a mission simply for that reason.”

Ivan nodded at the remark. It made sense.

“Being covert means being covert in every sense of the word. You stick out like a sore thumb.”

“So, let’s see what we’ve got,” Sasha said as he stepped up to the table.

“You look tired, Andrey.” President Novichkov leaned forward placing his elbows on his desk, the fabric of his sleeves digging into the leather pad atop the polished wood.

“I am fine,” he replied as he sat nervously across from the desk.

“Perhaps this job is catching up to you? It is a stressful place to work, my friend. Don’t be ashamed if it is becoming too much. We are not the vibrant young men of days long gone.”

“Perhaps a few days off would be in order.” Andrey felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket. There was only one number set to vibrate. He felt his face go pale.

“That would be a good thing. Even generals need some time off, from time to time.” Yuri folded his hands together as he studied his chief of staff. “I have a dacha, a beautiful place in the Crimea. And, it is far enough away from the troubles in that little rouge state,” he said with a smile. “You should take a few days and go down there. It will do you good, my friend.”