Chapter 9: Hostage Situation
Natasha Kalashnikova brooded over her computer in the Red Army’s 1ST Chemical Warfare Battalion. She was bored, bored as bored could be. She had viewed and reviewed every page on the secure Red Army network, and had found dirt on most of the officers in her unit except for Major Kazansky, whose file was harder to find than a black man in the Red Army. She sat on her desk, twirling a pencil on the table while resting her head on a stack of books. Suddenly, she heard a whisper coming in from another room.
“Nice try, gefreitor; I’ve seen that movie a million times – and no mere imitation is going to scare me now.” The doors in the office complex around her slammed shut and locked themselves, not before the lights turned off.
“Very funny, comrade gefreitor! I’ll have your head for this!”
The whisper grew louder.
“Okay, okay, you’re scaring me! Stop it!”
Black matter crept down the walls from the cracks in the ceiling; it was like the room was being flooded with a sort of misty tar.
“It’s not funny anymore! Stop!”
Before she could say any more, a wave of black matter, with bloody fangs, rose as tall as she was and swallowed her out of her desk. The black matter then immediately disappeared.
A gefreitor walked into the room, looking around. “Comrade Leytenant? Comrade Leytenant? Where’d you go?”
A couple of days later, Charnaiz, Kazansky and Shruiken were meeting at a conference table in the Red Army science facility back in Vladivostok when Krovin’s face appeared on the large video display screen that hung overhead. Upon seeing his face, Kazansky immediately rushed out of his seat and ran into another room. Charnaiz was dumbfounded at the apparent cowardice of the major, and Shruiken was disgusted at his lack of honor in the face of his enemy, but they were the ones who would have to listen to Arkady Krovin.
“It seems your friend has ran out on you.” Krovin said, mockingly.
“What do you want, Krovin?” Charnaiz asked, sneering.
“I wish to relay information to you, my good king.” He said, laughing softly.
“About what?” asked Shruiken.
“Be patient, Yaponiskii, I will tell all if you let me finish.” He said, his fingers drumming the table in the video screen. “You have something that belongs to me.” he continued, “He is known as the white snake – now don’t play dumb with me, I know you have him – I have heard it myself.”
“What are you talking about?” Charnaiz asked.
“I have no time for these games.” Krovin said, frowning. The view of the camera changed to Aquilifon, causing Charnaiz to glare at the screen, and then it moved downwards, towards his hands, one of which was holding something human-like, with blonde hair and a torn red uniform.
“Natasha… is that her?” Charnaiz said.
“Indeed. I see you can familiarize yourself with people that are not from your world. People such as I and my friend here.” He said, grinning, as a pair of red eyes opened from the black wall behind him. Shruiken crossed his arms and said,
“It’s a good trick, but it doesn’t scare me…”
“You are an arrogant one, aren’t you?” Krovin said, annoyed. “But let me get down to the point here – although I’m sure you understand already. Return the white snake to me, and you will get your friend back. Dead? Alive? I don’t know. That’s all up to him.” he said, pointing to Aquilifon, who, in turn, waved tauntingly at Charnaiz, which caused him to bang his fist on the table.
“You have one week to give the white snake to us – we will make the exchange at the old abandoned Soviet fortress outside Vladivostok.” Then, the video screen shut off.
Kazansky, as if on queue, decided to enter the room. “Okay, I’ve got it.” He announced.
“Got what?” asked Charnaiz.
“His location.”
“I’m sorry? I do not understand.” asked Shruiken.
“That video was live. Me and the electronic warfare boys were tracing his location during the entire length of the transmission.”
“You had a good backup plan.” Charnaiz said.
“You’ll never guess where it was – it was inside the town, several blocks away from here! He was taping in an old safe house – he’s insane! We’ve already sent in Nicolette and her boys to retrieve Natasha. We should be hearing from them in a little while.” suddenly, Kazansky received a radio transmission; it was the Scorpion.
“Ah, major – this is Lieutenant Blanchfleur. We found something, but, uh, it’s not what you’d expect… qu’est que c’est…”
“What is it, lieutenant?” Kazansky asked.
“There’s nothing here but this merde television set facing a video camera!”
“What the…”
Suddenly, the television screen at the old house came to life. Krovin’s ugly face reappeared, laughing.
“Major Kazansky – you’ve done as I had anticipated. You still follow the book after all these years. You should learn to be more flexible.” he said. “The house that your mercenary team broke into is rigged. The doors are now locked, and the second I am done speaking, the room where they are in will be filled with deadly VX gas. Don’t try to find any more loopholes in this situation, major. I’ll be watching you.”
Immediately, white clouds of smoke were released from the pipes below the television set, but the former French legionnaire and her comrades were long gone. They had blown a hole in the nearest exit when Nicolette had sensed something wrong, and were now safely out of the building.
Furious, the Scorpion shouted to Kazansky over the radio, “Votre ami a juste essayé de nous tuer avec le gaz!” (Your friend just tried to kill us with gas!)
“The merc said what?” Kazansky asked, frowning.
“She says that Krovin gave her massive bunda.”
“What the hell is bunda?”
“It’s a Portuguese dish made of tartar sauce on pig rump.”
“…I see no point in that whatsoever.”
“The French are pointless, my friend.”
“Hey!” Nicolette interrupted, “I heard that, you fils d'une chienne!”
“Say what?” asked Kazansky.
“More pointless gab.” Charnaiz coughed, “Putain de grenouille.”
“We better get them out of that hot zone – the gas might still get them.” Kazansky said, a bit concerned – not over the gas per se, but over Charnaiz and Nicolette.
Murad burst into the room just in time. “Salam alaikum, major, warrior, your majesty.”
Kazansky turned to him and asked, “Yes, what is it?”
“They have brought a man in white.”
“Oh, good. That’d be our man.” Kazansky said, walking out of the room towards the main hall.
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