The Vladivostok Incident

Chapter 3

Business

Disorientated and in pain, Shelton's head was a whirlwind of confusion as the armored vehicle began to pull out. Steel and concrete whizzed by the window, mixing and mashing the scene until he was lost. Warmth from the blood was beginning to fade; his arm was numb everywhere except the wounds themselves, where the sting of precise cuts sent hurried signals to his brain. Many signals were not registered right away. The cogs of his mind had been halted and even his most basic functions had slowed. The colors that were churned into a magnificent swirl, coupled with the blood loss and pain, eventually shut Shelton's brain down almost completely.

In darkness he was lost for an untold amount of time. When he finally was awoken again, he was rested upon some sort of makeshift stretcher. At first his vision was blurry, but once it became clear he didn't see much anyway. There was a ceiling, so obviously he was inside, but where? He uneasily shifted his head and saw what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. It couldn't have been bigger than medium sized shop, but then again, Shelton was no expert at guessing. Alone in one corner, he could observe everyone as they went about their business. The first thing he did was look for a familiar face. He found three: Petras, Caesar and Antanas.

Shelton managed to pull himself up. His movement got the eye of the nearest man. He was a dopey looking soldier; his hat was angled up so his bangs snuck out to just barely touch his drowsy brown eyes. With a round nose and goofy, wide smile, he said, "Hey seems the kid's moving!" The soldier moved towards him and sat down in a cheap, steel chair which had probably been left there. Another quick glance around showed the group must have taken refuge in the warehouse. Several vehicles were parked inside, which gave him an idea of its size. Two armored vehicles and one jeep were parked comfortably with space to spare. Several soldiers were busy placing down blankets and other bedding.

A shiver ran down Shelton's spine. The freezing temperature hit him full force and he tried to warm himself up with his left arm. How did the dopey soldier stay warm with just a thin jacket and cargo pants? Someone must have caught Shelton's jealous look and shivering frame, because soon a large, wool blanket was tossed at him. It landed on his head and he scrambled to wrap himself in it. "Thank you!" Shelton chirped happily.

"How is your injury?" the man who presented him with the blanket asked. Shelton's smile faded at the gruff voice. He c****d his head to the side as he examined the man in front of him. He wasn't exactly tall. In fact, he might have been shorter than Shelton. His frame was not frail, however, and was built well for someone who appeared to be reaching fifty years of age. A wool cap covered his skull and his small, dark eyes squinted with impatience while his lips quivered. Shelton wasn't sure whether his chin was covered with dirt or stubble.

"Ah, it's pretty sore," Shelton answered honestly. He removed it from the blanket to see that it had been stitched up while he slept. Also added was a new splint, which appeared to be better built than his previous one.

"You can thank your buddy for that," the man said as he jammed his thumb towards Petras.

"Is Shelton awake?" a voice from under the jeep asked. Out rolled a mechanics creeper with Andrei. He peered over at the cot and said, "I need your help."

"Why don't you make Petras or Antanas help you?" Shelton complained. Despite the complaint he stood to help anyway. He tested his feet on the concrete floor to success. He wasn't disorientated anymore. One step later he felt something tug at his arm. One look down showed an IV. With a rip it was gone, and he followed it up to a bag of blood. Had they managed to give him a blood transfusion in the middle of nowhere?

"Are you kidding me?" Andrei asked, not aware of the fact Shelton just discovered the IV. "Petras can barely operate a crane and Antanas never even held a wrench."

"I don't even know what a wrench is," Antanas added in a joking manner.

Shelton ignored the IV and decided it was time to focus on the task at hand. He joined Andrei at the jeep and with his left arm begun to diagnose the problem. The short, old man followed Shelton. As the young man's brown head disappeared under the jeep the solder asked, "Do you know a lot about vehicles?"

"Know a lot? Are you joking?" Shelton answered. "I built these babies."

"Did you now?"

"Yeah," Petras said. "Didn't you know these are ZL jeeps?"

"What about these IFVs?" the man asked, referring to the armored vehicles. "Did you build those, too?"

"Looks like the BMP Timur," Shelton remarked offhand. "If it is, I helped design it."

It was quiet after that except the noise of the two working on the jeep. Shelton found mechanics to be a moment where he could block out anything his mind tried to force on him. There was no better time than now to bury himself in a task and work hard at it; he knew once he was left to himself the memories would come back. Would he have to live with it forever? He hoped not. As for the others, both Antanas and Petras were still visibly shaken. Antanas was clearly more paranoid and was constantly scanning the warehouse for anything suspicious. Andrei seemed the same as always, and Shelton admired him for his calm nature in any situation.

Yet neither Shelton nor Andrei could hide the fact they were clearly upset. It took them close to ten minutes to realize the only problem with the jeep was a slipped belt. Any other time and they could have had it fixed and running within a single minute. When Shelton triumphantly announced the jeep was in good working order, he expected congratulations or a thank you. To his surprise, a trooper grabbed him by the back of his collar without a word. His nerves began to go wild, with the nagging bite of fear in his mind – fear that he had out lived his use.

He was placed alongside the other survivors at the back wall, except for Caesar, who made himself comfortable under blankets at the other end. Lined up side by side, the survivors could feel each other's hearts race. It felt like they were being prepared for execution. Most of the soldiers minded their own business until the older, short man from earlier stood in front of the survivors. The moment he appeared, the entire warehouse became deathly still.

"Call me Rex. I want your names, starting with you," the man pointed at Petras.

"Ya ne gavareeu na angliyskom," he said with a shrug.

"Don't f**k around. I heard you speak English," Rex ordered.

"Besides that was terrible Russian," Antanas said with a sigh. Rex shoved a rifle in his face and Antanas immediately straightened up and silenced himself.

"Petras Garder."

"Antanas Fedorov."

"Andrei Tsarev."

"Shelton Lund."

"I want you to listen closely so I don't have to repeat myself," his gruff voice said. "You have several options as to what you want to do next – hopefully you make one we can agree on. Number one: You can leave here and crawl your frostbitten ass straight back into Chinese occupied Tynda. Number two: You can stay here in this ghost town and starve to death. Or, number three: You can just let me shoot you in the head and make it easy on you. Any questions?"

"Can I call you T-Rex?" Shelton joked. The answer came in the form of a rifle butt to his gut. Antanas just passed a glance down at Shelton, who started to collapse to his knees. Andrei braved the gun and reached for Shelton. Rex did nothing to stop him.

"Can we have options that don't requiring dying?" Petras asked.

"I can think of only one," Rex said. "You can come with us."

"Why would we do that? We don't even know where you're going or who you are," said Antanas.

"Then let me tell you," growled Rex. "I'm a former NAU Commandant; I fought in the Battle of Panama, the Battle of La Ralma, and the Siege of Cartagena among others. In China I was captured and placed in a labor camp. A year ago I escaped with a couple of this cute bunch."

"Thanks for the life story, but what does this have to do with us?" Shelton questioned.

"At first, nothing; but while you were working on that jeep I realized I have two uses for you. The first is obvious: I'll need specialized mechanics for these vehicles we've commandeered. The second is bigger than that. We'll be headed towards occupied territory. At the Port of Vladivostok the Chinese plan to dock their main fleet in about two weeks. We have a plan of our own: to destroy the fleet as it docks and hopefully kill the President. The dock is operated by Zimmerman-Li Industries."

"You want us to sneak in to the dock and find a way to blow it up," Andrei stated.

"We already have the plan. You just need to get in there. You'll each receive ten thousand marks for your work," he informed them. Ten thousand marks was twice a year's salary for the workers.

"Well," Antanas said with a smile. "Since I'm not a mechanic I guess you'll just be taking me home!"

"Actually we got something special planned for you, Fedorov!" the dopey soldier said with a grin. "Do you have any idea how much ransom we could get for you?"

"In the meantime you can beat information out of him," Petras joked. This time it was Petras's turn to get a gun butt to the chest.

"Anyone else want a broken rib?" Rex barked. The group went silent and stiff in response. "Good. You're probably shaken still. I'll give you until tomorrow morning to think it over."

Surprised at the sudden turnaround the four men tried to occupy themselves with the tasks at hand. For the most part, the soldiers and the factory workers stayed separated. The only time they mingled was when the dopey looking soldier – who named himself Antoine the Trapper – gave them a spot to sleep. Small chat was exchanged and nothing of real importance was discovered. Shelton did, however, find out that it was Antoine who gave the transfusion. "I'm a universal donor!" he said happily. Petras and Antoine hit it off quickly; both had the same immature sense of humor and goofy attitude. So while none of the factory workers felt brave or outgoing enough to strike a conversation with the soldiers, they still had Antoine as a source of information.

When food time rolled around about an hour later, they received a ration box. Inside was a cool, mushy food which was tan in color. It didn't look too appealing and the workers showed their displeasure on their face. Petras, never one to say no, dove right in. He continued to devour the food. When questioned whether it was good, he simply answered, "No." Indeed, it tasted terrible; the texture was like soggy oats and the taste was no better than paper. But for those stricken with hunger, it was welcomed.

The workers sat alone, save for Antoine who found them too interesting to leave alone. "So, why exactly were you in Tynda?" Antanas finally asked. The question had bugged him since the incident began.

"We'd planned to take the truck route straight into China," Antoine explained. "Viktor was our ace. As a driver for Zimmerman-Li he could sneak us into China without any question."

"He agreed to that?" Shelton said, surprised. That didn't sounds like the Viktor he knew.

"Viktor? He's been part of our group for over a year now. I sure hope he made it out alright…" Antoine let it trail off. "Looks like the Chinese were a step ahead."

"Yeah, and now who knows what's left of Tynda," Shelton muttered. He shoved a spoonful of the mush into his mouth and swallowed it without chewing. "So have you decided what you're going to do?" he asked Petras.

The younger man stopped to think. "I really don't know. I have family in Tynda. I want to make sure they're safe. You?" he asked.

Shelton was personally torn between crawling back to Tynda and going with Rex. On one hand, his entire life was in Tynda, especially that engineering degree he wanted so badly. Yet if the Chinese had invaded that far into Russia, there might not be a life left back there. What of the factory itself? Could he really walk the floor with the memory of the dead etched in his mind? Petras had a more "legitimate" concern. He was the oldest of four children and with only a disabled mom as a parent, he was in charge of them. In the end, Shelton shrugged and asked Andrei, "What about you?"

Andrei had been silent the entire time. For him, it was probably a little more devastating. It wasn't that his entire life was in Tynda – his entire life was at the factory. Shelton and Petras were young enough to rebound and rebuild. Despite the fact he wouldn't admit it, Andrei was a tired man. The question for him wasn't, "Where do I have to go?" but rather, "What do I have to live for?" He looked at the dark eyes of Petras and clear eyes of Shelton. Within both pairs he saw youth and dreams; it was then that he decided what he needed to do. "If you go with Rex, you'll become a soldier."

"Yeah, so?" Shelton asked with a shrug.

"I want you to stop and think about what happened at the factory," requested Andrei. "Realize that this is what nearly every day will hold for you, and many of those brutalities will be caused by your own doing."

"It's a covert mission," Petras said. "There won't be much violence until we get to the dock, and by the time those bombs go off, we'll be out of town."

"Your conscience is safe with that?" a skeptical Andrei inquired.

"Look, I've got people to take care of. What's it to me if a couple of people get killed?"

Andrei had nothing to say to Petras's remark. The matter was dropped entirely and the group focused on their food. They didn't have much time after they finished their food to talk, as about ten minutes after everyone completed their meals, Rex called for lights out. The soldiers were down in their bedding and asleep instantly. It wasn't quite the same for the workers. Petras tossed and turned for several minutes before exhausting himself; it wasn't much longer before his snores began to eclipse all other noises. Antanas complained that the bedding wasn't comfortable or warm enough; he ended up in the fetal position, asleep only because his body couldn't stay awake any longer. Andrei disappeared out the front door unnoticed.

As for Shelton, he lied awake in his bedding. Throbbing pain in his arm was the main culprit. The stitches were tender and the broken bone was aching. That wasn't his only problem. Whenever he closed his eyes, he expected to only see the familiar darkness. Instead, he found himself back at the factory. Go figure, he thought as he tried to roll over and sleep. The damn thought doesn't bug me until I need to get some rest. Try as he might, Shelton couldn't take his mind off of it. Maybe it was the darkness of the warehouse; the cold, stagnant air of the night; or it could have been the deafening silence, which was only broken by the snores and occasional cough.

Eventually the numbing air lifted him out of bed and he had to get away. Even if just for a few minutes, Shelton had to see the sky and reminded himself that he was still alive. Carefully, he maneuvered around the others and found his way to the front door. The cold metal of the handle sent a shiver up his arm and down his neck. Quietly he turned the handle and stepped out onto the ghost town street, where the only light came from the moon and stars. Seated on the ground, his arms rested on his knees, was Andrei. He smiled at Shelton as the younger one closed the door.

"Can't sleep?" Andrei questioned. Shelton answered with merely a nod. He leaned his head back against the wall and stared up into space as Shelton took a seat next to him. "Are you still chasing the moon?"

It was an odd question, but Shelton realized that Andrei probably needed a meaningless chat as much as Shelton. Stars reflected in his blue eyes as he, too, stared into the Heavens. "Yeah," he admitted with a laugh. "It's hard to see the stars in Amsterdam, so I always was fascinated by them."

"You grew up in Amsterdam."

"A lot of people think it's a dirty place, but I remember it being beautiful. My mom had it tough, but we were a fairly well off. I'm sure she was heartbroken when I turned out to be such a rowdy kid. I get tired of all the bullshit that says bad kids come from rough homes. I'd like to believe it was my own choosing to be a hard ass."

Andrei chuckled. That was just like the arrogant Shelton. "So what brought you out to Tynda?" he asked. True, they had known each other for a decade, but there were many things they didn't know about each other.

"About the time I left war was breaking out," Shelton explained. "The anarchists were gaining a lot of support, especially from the working class. The soldiers started to push back. It was for our own safety, I suppose, but when you're a kid you only view the world as me against them. I got into a fight with a group of soldiers. A day later they were looking for me, saying I killed one of them. I don't know if that's true or not, but you know they wouldn't have taken me alive. I did the first thing I could think of. I stole as much money as I could get my hands on and grabbed the first vehicle that I could jack and left. I rode this beat up motorcycle until it ran out of gas. Then I'd fill it up and do it again. I did this until I ran of money. When that happened I was in Tynda."

"More exciting than my life at that age," Andrei said with a halfhearted grin.

"This I gotta hear," Shelton said eagerly.

Andrei laughed, "It's nothing exciting. I was pretty worthless skill wise. Back then there was still a law that made serving in the military mandatory. I couldn't get a job, so I ended up joining at fifteen. I served as part of the patrol in Barnaul until my five years were severed. I was noticed by Antanas's predecessor as a potential candidate to manage the new factory in Tynda. So once my time I was up, they sent me down here."

"Don't believe you," Shelton quickly interrupted. He gave Andrei a knowing look, so the older man reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. After he fumbled around with the beaten leather wallet he managed to produce a photo close to twenty years old. Its edges were worn and the color was faded just a tad, yet the young man with the twinkling green eyes was undeniably Andrei. His light brown hair was hidden by a red beret and his blue uniform was partially hidden by a young girl. "Is this your wedding photo?"

"Ah, yeah," Andrei sheepishly admitted. "I don't have any other photos of me in a uniform…"

"How did a loser like you get a babe like this?!" Shelton joked loudly. The young lady could have been mistaken for a porcelain doll; her face was perfectly smooth with splendid lips and wondrous, almond shaped brown eyes. Her hair flowed freely across her shoulder and shone brilliantly. Andrei snatched the photo away and stuffed it back into his wallet. "What happened?" Shelton asked and pointed to the now hidden photo.

Andrei let out a loud sigh and said, "I spent too much time at the factory, and the life of a working class man wasn't enough for her. She found interest in another soldier and well, that was that. I still talk to her sometimes. I keep promising my kids I'll visit but I never have the time or money."

"Maybe this mercenary job is the break you've been looking for."

"Maybe. Maybe this is the break you've been looking for," countered Andrei, as he placed a warm hand onto Shelton's shoulder. That was just like Andrei – his workers were his brothers, and he could easily see through Shelton's faade.