Arctic Wargame - Страница 36

Loud mumbling broke through the crowd, mostly from the back rows.

“Weapons will be given to you after landing,” Gunter continued, pacing to his right and then turning around. “Resistance from the enemy is expected to be pathetic, at best. Still everyone is urged to take this mission very seriously. You should make every effort to accomplish it victoriously. May God bless you all.”

“Hmm, Chief,” a scratchy voice called from the back row. “We’re all chained up here, like mad dogs.”

Gunter tilted his head and looked for the man. He found him standing at the far end corner of the platoon.

“I’ve got this.” Yuliya held Gunter’s arm and marched toward the scratchy voice. Two of the guards unknown to Magnus followed her. “Chained up you say?”

“Yes, don’t you see the handcuffs?” the man lifted up his arms.

“I see an attitude,” Yuliya replied. “An attitude of disrespect toward authority.”

The man snorted with a big shrug.

“Mr. Madsen’s authority is not to be questioned, neither by you nor—”

“I’m saying, if we’re heroes and that bullshit, why don’t you trust us?”

“You interrupted me. But maybe you’re right. Maybe we’re asking too much of you, and we’re seeing things that just aren’t there. Maybe it’s all bullshit, as you say, and there are no heroes among you.” Yuliya nodded to one of the two guards behind her. “Yuri, what is Mr.—”

“Villadsen, Pedar Villadsen,” the man replied. He stood straight and tall with a natural pride when giving his name.

“Yes. And Mr. Villadsen’s reason for being behind bars?”

Yuri swung his HK MP5 submachine gun behind his shoulder and tapped a few keys on his BlackBerry. “Murder,” he said after a few seconds. “Mr. Villadsen was convicted for murder and has served half of his fifteen-year sentence.”

“Murder. Interesting.” Yuliya circled around Pedar. “An innocent man?” she asked.

Pedar remained silent.

“What’s going on here?” Magnus asked Gunter, who was observing the exchange, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “What is she up too?”

“I have no idea,” Gunter replied coldly. His gaze seemed distant, detached from the scene taking place in front of his eyes.

“Tell me. Was he an innocent man?” Yuliya asked again.

“Nobody’s innocent,” Pedar replied.

“Quite so,” she said.

She took Yuri’s BlackBerry and skimmed through the pages of Pedar’s file stored in the device. “You shot a liquor store clerk, after tying and blindfolding him.”

Pedar nodded, his crooked teeth flashing an evil grin.

Yuliya stepped closer to him. She removed her HK USP 9mm pistol with a swift gesture and pressed it against Pedar’s left side, wedging it tight in the man’s ribcage. “I’m doing you the same favor, you son of a bitch,” she sputtered.

Pedar stumbled backwards and began to raise his arms. Yuliya was fast on the trigger. A single bullet pierced through Pedar’s clothes and skin. He was dead before his body hit the cement floor.

Magnus’s hand went for his side weapon, but the corner of his eye caught a quick glimpse of Gunter’s emotionless face. Why is he not intervening? What’s going on here?

“Shit,” shouted the man standing next to Pedar, glancing at the pool of blood forming around the body. “You’ve killed him, you—”

Yuliya pointed her pistol at the agitated man, in case he attempted a stupid act of revenge. “Yes, and I will not think twice about punishing any form of disobedience.”

She returned to the front of the platoon, followed by Yuri and the other guard.

All Magnus could do was stare in disbelief, as Gunter took a step back, giving Yuliya the floor. Some of the recruits shook their heads. Others stared at the floor.

“Maybe the commander was thinking too highly of you maggots, when he tried to lighten up your condemned souls. Maybe we’re miscalculating your thirst for evil. Well, here it is in simple and clear words: You do what you’re told, or else I’ll kill you all with my own hands. Is that clear?”

A couple of shy nods came from the third row.

“I can’t hear anything,” Yuliya shouted. “Do you get it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” a few half-hearted replies came from the crowd.

“What? I can’t hear you!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the platoon roared in a single voice.

“Great, that’s much better. Back to you, Commander.” Yuliya placed her pistol in its holster.

Gunter sighed and took a deep breath before speaking in a wavering voice. “Magnus, take the platoon into the Hercules. I’ll complete the inspection of the other barracks. Follow me, Yuliya.”

“Yes, yes, sir,” Magnus replied. I’ve got to figure out what the hell is going on here, and who is actually in charge.

Arctic Bay, Canada

April 14, 6:25 a.m.

“My father, Pukiq, was a hunter.” Kiawak’s voice was shaky, like his hands, and mixed tinged with nostalgia as he began to speak to his people in their native language. He had asked for Justin’s help, and he had sat him on the floor. Everyone in the crowd had followed his example, forming a semi-circle. “Pukiq’s father, Saghani, he was a hunter too. He liked to hunt seals in particular, and he liked it when my grandma Kenojuak cooked them for him after he returned from long voyages.”

“What is Kiawak saying?” Justin whispered to Nilak, who leaned over and began translating for him in a hushed voice.

“Our ancestors roamed Baffin Island,” Kiawak continued, “from east to west, as far as the caribou and the polar bear wander, when the land froze and when the snow melted, and when the long dark nights were replaced by endless daylight. As far as our forefathers remember, this place, these mountains and oceans, rivers and lakes, these were always our home. We built our villages, and we hunted our food. We lived and we died. We married, and we raised our children.

“It was a time when there was no government, no Canada. We had no enemies, but our own forgetfulness, which, at times, came with the high price of famine, shortages of supplies or sicknesses. The White Wolf was our guide, and the Polar Bear our wise and powerful friend. The land gave us food, and the iceberg gave us water.”

Kiawak’s words had begun to calm down even the loudest people in the crowd. The young man in the bandana removed it, and his eyes showed he was deeply entangled in the fascinating world Kiawak was taking them. Other men had closed their eyes or were blinking constantly, trying to envision the beauty and the serenity of the time far gone.

“Summers and winters played tag with each other. Our children had children of their own, and our elders fell asleep and joined their fathers. But when the white man came, he brought division and fighting. He pillaged our land, stole our values, and crippled our spirits. He took away our names and gave us numbers, confining us to earthly dwellings, and separating us from our freedom. A country he made for us, towns and cities, promising us prosperity and security. Instead, we found misery and isolation, abandonment and rejection.”

Justin squinted as if to come out of his trance and glanced at Kiawak. Where’s he going with this?

“But not all white men are the same. Like fingers on our hand, they are all different. Two great women we have in our midst, our nurses, Liana and Marietta, who save lives and take good care of us. Our teachers, Sebastian and Vladimir, are great mentors to our children, as they mold their young minds. We have wonderful pilots, who fly us fast to faraway places, where it would take us weeks to get on our own.”

Justin felt Kiawak’s feeble hand resting on his shoulder. “This hunter, Justin, one of my best friends, saved my life and rescued Tania from the claws of death. He’s a great defender of our people. He will never abandon his own. Now that our freedom is once again threatened by the white men coming from across the Great Waters, our only reaction is to take up our arms to fight. We need to unite. We need to be one, in our goal and in our mind. Just as a single man leads his group during a hunt, so shall we go into our battle and return victorious. We will fight and win this battle. Every one of us, all of us, will join the fight.”

Kiawak’s last words, shouted in a strong, loud voice, brought the expected reaction. People applauded, some in tears of joy and some in cheerful cries. A few young men raised clenched fists, waving them in the air.

“Thank you, Kiawak,” Justin whispered, shaking Kiawak’s hand.

“No, thank you, my friend. If it weren’t for your determination, I would have been dead.”

“Determination? Some people would call it craziness.”

“Not me, Justin. I call it what it really is.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Twenty-five thousand feet over Baffin Island, Canada

April 14, 07:00 a.m.

The cockpit of the C-130J Super Hercules felt warmer and Gunter ordered the pilot to turn the temperature down. The glass-enclosed cabin provided ample room for five people. In addition to the second pilot, Magnus and Yuliya sat next to Gunter behind the pilots. Valgerda had been assigned to the cargo compartment, along with one hundred and fifty combat troops. The contingent was almost a hundred men short from the original plan. Alisha’s unavailability and Smirnov’s paranoia had reduced the front unit to the bare minimum.

“We’re flying over Pond Inlet, sir,” the pilot informed Gunter, who kept fiddling with his BlackBerry Bold.