Patriot

CHAPTER 39

Colonel Beauregard’s armed convoy chugged through the main gate of the brand-new Vulcan complex at dawn. The sky was full black with a small band of orange and pink on the eastern horizon. In the months since his first meeting with the Dark Rider he had made huge strides in construction of training facilities and dormitories for his warriors, and amassing a weapons capability that would be the envy of any world power. Vulcan was rapidly approaching the allotted number of men under arms, the training processing, and the further development of radical weaponry that they’d had before Vulcan’s downfall.

His men, all prior Vulcan personnel, had been repositioned to hot spots all over the world. Working undercover in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Working with their new Russian comrades to counter the West in places like Cuba and Mexico… all in the interest of furthering Russian interests under the express direction and beneficence of Uncle Joe.

At the center of the colonel’s procession was an enclosed flatbed trailer truck. It was painted with camo paint and looked harmless enough to any nosy observers. But beneath the retractable roof was a newly developed weapon system that would strike fear into the hearts of Russia’s enemies. It had been developed by Vulcan scientists and engineers from plans long on the drawing board but never brought to fruition. Now the mercenaries had the nearly unlimited funding necessary to create their next generation weapons of war.

The Vulcan support forces men involved had steeled themselves for the Trans-Siberian journey. It would take them into the most desolate regions of the Siberian wastelands. It would take them all the way, but not quite, to the northern border of China, their theater of operations.

Since the colonel’s official arrival in Russia, General Krakov and the KGB senior staff had proved to be most hospitable to him and his entire support staff; they had accommodated Beauregard’s every demand. Thirty-thousand Vulcan troops were well-fed, well-rested, and well-equipped at the Winter Palace. As the Kremlin moved ever closer to a war footing with their sworn enemies in the West, he’d been invited to more and more Kremlin briefings with the highest-ranking military brass under Putin’s command.

Russia had rolled into the Ukraine like a tidal wave crushing all the Kiev-led opposition with Russian tanks, troops, and combat air support. The resulting world outcry was deafening, but a week later no one in the global media even talked about it anymore. They were focused like lasers on newly arrived Russian troops massing on the borders with Estonia, Poland, and Hungary. One hundred thousand men under arms, and the number was growing every day. Russian tank battalions and armored divisions were coming up from the rear.

For the first time, the phrase “boots on the ground” was being talked about on the Sunday-morning talk shows. American boots.

As the threat of world war loomed, the American in the White House was strangely silent. The political party in opposition was screaming for his head, but he was obdurate and immutable, noncommittal in his single press conference since the Ukraine disaster. There were increasing calls for impeachment in the media and on Capitol Hill.

Looking for leadership from Washington with increasing hopelessness, the British prime minister, David Cameron, was beginning to believe he’d have to go up against Putin with only Australia, New Zealand, the Germans, and a few lesser EU members backing him up. America had suddenly and mysteriously retreated from its position of world leadership. Long gone were the days when President Reagan had told the Kremlin to “Tear down this wall!”

Without American strength, the world had veered into a very dark place.

Two weeks earlier, in an offsite meeting outside of Moscow, Beauregard had met with General Krakov and the highest-ranking members of the Russian politburo. All such high-level meetings were held at Rus, a secret KGB dacha deep in an ancient forest.

Drive one hour due north of Moscow, sticking to the primary roads, and you will find yourself tunneling through one of Russia’s great primeval forests. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest, the venerated Dark Forest.

If, like Colonel Beauregard’s uniformed KGB driver and the armed security man seated beside him in the front, you actually know where you’re headed, you will be looking for a secondary road, unpaved and overgrown with weeds and ferns, that veers off in an easterly direction.

That road is not marked, nor will you find it on any map.

Proceed through the dense wood in an eastward direction at thirty miles per hour for exactly twenty minutes. Stop and get out of your car. There you’ll see a sign. It’s very easy to miss but on the right side of the road stands a larch tree. High on the trunk is a small, hand-carved red wooden arrow. It points the way to one of old Mother Russia’s most closely held secrets. So secret that the name is never uttered aloud or committed to paper with ink.

On that sign is painted a single letter. R.

Rus. A massive, rambling structure, deep in the Dark Forest, was built centuries ago of Siberian larch and without the use of a single nail. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the ancient hunting lodge was used by the tsars. The Russian potentates would journey there from St. Petersburg or Moscow with their courtiers and assorted hangers-on, frequently with their mistresses, to carouse, drink, and shoot. But mainly, they would drink. They shot wild boar and duck primarily, but, not infrequently, blind drunk guests would angrily shoot each other.

The rough-hewn wooden lodge, with its massive porches, stone chimneys, and great dark green shutters, is situated atop a modest hill. Rolling green lawns sweep down to a large blue lake dappled with sunlight. In late fall, the docks still boast expensive sailing yachts and speedboats. There are also a number of fishing boats, fully staffed, for those who fancy an afternoon of stalking the finny denizens of the deep; or, simply sunbathing au naturel on deck with the odd lady friend or two.

In modern times the Rus Lodge has been the exclusive haunt of high-level Communist Party leaders. More recently, Russian presidents and prime ministers had been known to visit. Boris Yeltsin loved Rus and he went there to die. Cardiovascular disease and assorted other problems brought on by his beloved “little water,” Russian parlance for vodka, had finally taken their toll.

In modern times, Rus and the surrounding forests had taken on a far darker cast. No longer do drunken kings chase golden-haired nymphs across the green lawns. Today, the woods were full of heavily armed security guards, and the single incoming dirt road from the outside world had been quickly landmined after the arrival of the last attendee, the American warrior for whom the Russians all had such high hopes. He could well be the man who made all the difference in the coming global conflict.

On an upper floor of the lodge was a room known as the Eagle’s Star Chamber. The rough wooden walls were hidden behind acres of bloodred velvet hangings. In the center of the room, beneath a candlelit chandelier that easily weighed over a ton, was a massive round table. The table bore the scars of use and had been hand-carved in the late Middle Ages. Many had supped at this table and many had died, having suffered unbearable torments and cruelties while bound to the “Rus Stol,” now known to the thirty men who now sat around it as the “Circle of Life.”

Carved deeply and long ago into the center of this great circle of oak was the ancient Russian motto: “The Wolves Must Eat Too.”

It was an exceedingly warm day in early fall. Light breezes shivered on the lake and in the surrounding trees. And though the large leaded glass windows were flung open, it was oppressively hot in the room. Colonel Beauregard swiped at his brow with his sopping linen handkerchief. Wanting to keep his wits about him for this important meeting, he had been fastidiously abstaining from sampling the contents of the cut crystal vodka decanters that were ringed around the table, one for every two attendees.

Krakov got to his feet, perspiring heavily inside his old Soviet uniform, the ceremonial attire he always donned while at the dacha regardless of the season.

“I would like to respectfully propose we warmly welcome to our table a great soldier of fortune. His name is Colonel Brett Beauregard. He has an army of exquisitely trained warriors, political assassins, and professional killers. Male, female, young, old. An army of them, do you hear me? With weaponry of his own design and, in many cases, far more advanced than most of the military superpowers, including our own. He is here today because of our impending offensive in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the weeks and months to come.”

The heavyset man sat back down and said, “Let the record show that Brett Beauregard and his Vulcan Corporation shall be placed on the list of honored members of this tribunal.”

“So moved,” said the secretary and all hands went up in support of the colonel.

The ranking general then gave a brief presentation, outlining the plans for the next phase of what was now being called in the world press “Putin’s Soviet Reintegration.” He stated the obvious need for some sort of “distraction” to cover the coming Russian offensives in the West. And he reiterated the tribunal’s motives for choosing Beauregard to provide the mother country that cover before formally giving the American the floor.

“Comrades,” the colonel began, eliciting knowing smiles around the table. “My team on the ground in Tvas was humbled by your choosing us to come up with a pivotal component of Operation Sword and Shield. We have been hard at work. But what we have conceived and built is a weapon the likes of which the world has not seen before… I call it… ‘Avenger.’”

A flatscreen monitor was suddenly filled with the image of a flatbed-mounted mobile launch system. The ground-to-air weapon’s design was so radically unlike anything any of them had seen before, they had no idea how to react.

“Tell them what it is, Colonel,” the general said, his eyes full of admiration.

“The Avenger Missile Delivery weapon is completely autonomous. It has self-contained radar and satellite mapping and geotracking. Capable of downing military aircraft from a remote location, obviously. But also sinking a destroyer. And taking out enemy spy satellites at surveillance altitudes. A one-weapon air force, manned or unmanned. Capable of covert high-speed transport to remote locations, firing, and then withdrawal. Nobody will even know Avenger was there. Any enemy satellites overhead will already have been destroyed.”

There was laughter and applause around the table. One man cried out, “Let’s send a few of those into Poland!”

The intense discussion of diversionary tactics wore on into the evening until the subject had been exhausted. Krakov said he would announce their decision on Colonel Beauregard’s proposal the next morning. He needed to get the Kremlin in the loop. The general rose, weary, and went to the windows.

Was Putin right? Could Russia really do this? Would no one fight? Not even the Americans when pushed to the limits? Would no one obliterate his beloved Moscow in retribution? Who had the answers? He felt in his gut that Putin and his right-hand man, Uncle Joe, were leading them all down a path fraught with equal measures of opportunity and existential danger. A rocky road that could lead to a rebirth of the new Russian spirit. Or the end of Russia as he had known and loved it.

He looked to the window.

The moon was yellow through the gnarled black trees.

He whispered a silent prayer for his country.