Citadel Of Fear

T. J. Hawkins checked his weapon. He mostly approved of the Polish kit. The Beryl rifle was basically a Russian AK but sexier and built to NATO standards. The young soldier peered out into crepuscular dawn across the gulf and took in the lights of Kaliningrad across the border as they came on in the predawn. “You know, I still don’t quite get how that’s Russia.”

Calvin James checked his weapon a final time, as well. “It’s an oblast, Hawk.”

“A what?”

“An exclave federal subject of Russia.”

“You know I love it when you talk all smart ’n’ stuff,” Hawkins declared.

Calvin James waited for it.

Hawkins sighed. “Okay, what’s an exclave?”

James made the young warrior work. “What’s the difference between the Latin prefixes en and ex?”

“Ex! Like exoskeleton! Outside! Like sci-fi body armor, and bugs!”

James nodded grudgingly. “Someone give that Wal-Mart-shopping, cornbread-fed Son of the South a cigar.”

Hawkins beamed. “Yeah, but why is it Russia? I mean, shouldn’t it be part of Poland or one of the Balticstans?”

Rafael Encizo snorted. “Did he just say Balticstan?”

“That piece of property has gone back and forth more than a few times historically,” Calvin James explained. “But the last time it traded hands? The Soviets took it from the Nazis, in World War II, and they didn’t give it back. To anybody.”

Hawkins nodded sagely. “They have a habit of that.”

“That they do. It’s the Russian Federation’s only western seaport that doesn’t freeze over in winter. They aren’t going to give it back to anyone anytime soon.”

Hawkins looked to their leader. “So what are we doing here again?

McCarter watched the trucks approach down the one-lane road through the misty marsh forest. They were a dozen klicks outside the Polish city of Elbag. The land was flat, dank, forested with twisted trees right out of a horror movie and mostly undeveloped. The Kaliningrad oblast was indeed Russia’s westernmost outpost, and had a massive military presence. Not unsurprisingly, the oblast also had a massive Russian organized crime presence, and served as a launch point for Russian mafiya endeavors into Western Europe.

This stretch of coast was a well-known smugglers’ route. McCarter knew that big money was paid on both sides of the border to keep the salty, dark, cold and windswept stretch of wetlands clear of Polish state police and customs.

Phoenix Force had rather neatly stopped a terrorist attack a week ago in Prague. McCarter had been rather pleased with himself and his team. However, Stony Man Farm had picked up some very strange and seemingly related chatter within hours of the strike. Strange enough that Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, the Farm’s cybernetics genius, had used the dreaded word anomalous.

The Farm had tracked the weapons through the black market web and their path had led to the Gdansk smuggling route and Kaliningrad. All signs pointed to something going on tonight.

McCarter scowled into the misting rain. Phoenix Force had once again been reduced to sticking their necks out and seeing who tried to chop their heads off. It was the Englishman’s least favorite method of investigation.

“With any luck we’re tying up loose ends, Hawk,” McCarter replied.

“I got a feeling we’re just getting started.”

McCarter nodded wearily into the wind. “And you’re not alone in that, are you, old son?”

“He called me old son.”

“You know? One day you are going to go one right proper Charlie too far.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

James answered. “It means, young blood, that one day, you are going to be all full of piss and vinegar, and say ‘you love it when I talk all black and stuff’ to me, and our fearless leader shall sit back and laugh at what happens to you.”

Hawkins looked back and forth as every senior Phoenix Force member save Manning grinned at him in the gloom. “That’s not right. That’s wrong. I’d never say something like that.”

Phoenix Force, including Manning over the com link, spoke as a unit. “Yes, you would.”

“That’s just wrong—”

Manning interrupted him with, “One mile, within range of my rifle, waiting on green light.”

“Roger that, Gummer,” McCarter replied. “Wait on my signal unless you get sudden inspiration.”

“Copy that.”

Encizo flipped up the sight on his grenade launcher. “Three trucks, how do you want to play it?”

“Well, I suppose I could step down there, step out in front and ask for an inspection.”

The Cuban grunted in amusement. “You don’t speak Russian or Polish.”

“But I do know a lorryful of Russian swearwords, and the word stop. Then it would be up to you lot and we all play it by ear.”

James gave the Phoenix Force leader a bemused look. “Wow.”

“You’ve got a better plan, then?”

“No, not all.” James grinned. “I’m all in.”

Manning’s voice dropped low over the link. “Guys?”

The convoy had stopped at approximately three hundred meters.

Hawkins stared at the three idling trucks. “Now why do you think they did that?”

McCarter’s brows bunched. “Don’t say it…”

Encizo said it. “I got a bad feeling.”

“They know we’re here,” James confirmed.

Manning’s voice grew concerned across the link. “Does anyone else hear that?”

McCarter strained his senses over the sound of the idling trucks in the distance.

Hawkins’s head snapped up. “Aw, hell.”