Not The Only One - A Winter Soldier Story

Chapter 4

I woke up to the man in the beret and two soldiers opening the door. After undoing my restraints, the soldiers locked their arms under my armpits and dragged me into a huge room with metal railings and some type of device in the center.

I was fastened into the strange metal chair. Machinery whirred, and two metal pieces made contact with my head. A painful electrical zapping forced horrible screams from my throat...

~

I was held in some strange type of metal chair. Men with guns surrounded the railed area around me. A man in a military uniform with a crimson beret stood before me.

A dark red book held the words he read aloud to me. "Создание. Убегая. Принуждение. Мать. Огонь. Вечер. Второй. Разрушен. Рейс. Лезвие." He closed the book and set it down.

"Доброе утро, солдат. Вы готовы ответить?" His cold eyes never left mine.

"Я готов отвечать," I answered, for there was no other choice but compliance.

"У меня есть для тебя миссия. У вас есть два дня на его выполнение." The man in the crimson beret picked up a manila folder and pulled from it a photo of a happy family with three school-age children.

"Они живут в конспиративном доме на окраине Горького, а точнее Нижнего Новгорода," he told me and showed a photo of a large but unassuming house with an address handwritten at the bottom of the picture. "Казнить женщину и детей. Без свидетелей."

He put away the two photographs and brought out a new one of a red shipping container. Flipping it over revealed a series of numbers and an address on the back. "В этом транспортном контейнере вы проведете ночь. У него есть запасы еды и оружия. В ночное время контейнер будет отправлен в Москву."

The man in the crimson beret presented a photo of an older couple. "Она готовится покинуть свой дом в Москве," he informed me and produced a photo of a large, beautiful building. A formal embossed gold font disclosed the address of the mansion. "Казни ее. Без свидетелей."

"Вы вернетесь в транспортный контейнер, и он будет отправлен в Ленинград или Санкт-Петербург, как его сейчас называют."

He then displayed a photo of a smiling couple with a tiny infant daughter. "Женщина и ребенок будут прятаться среди других женщин и детей в плацкарте в поезде Лев Толстой, который курсирует из Москвы в Хельсинки с остановкой в Санкт-Петербурге. Казнить женщину и ребенка. Без свидетелей."

"Ваша точка эвакуации - вокзал в Выборг." Finished with his discourse, he snapped the manila folder closed.

After a rushed breakfast of a bowl of porridge and a small cup full of sausage, two of the men with guns took me down a series of hallways and ushered me inside a room. Shelves of various types of clothing lined the walls and many sizes of boots sat mated up together on the floor. A middle-aged woman with pursed lips stood waiting for us. Her neatly pressed skirt and suit jacket, along with her tightly pulled-back bun, were a perfect example of how her military uniform was to be worn. This woman's spotless appearance told that she was the one who kept this room orderly with such precision. Her flashing brown eyes glared at me with contempt.

"Сними одежду," she ordered. A moment later, I stood before her without anything on. Handing me a black sports bra and underwear, she said, "Наденьте это." Soon, I was also wearing a pair of black pants and a black tank top that she gave me.

The woman walked over to the far wall and returned with a black leather top which had no right sleeve. She muttered something about, "это лучше подошло бы ей после всех этих переделок." After putting the top on me and tightening each of the straps on my chest, she ran her hand over my hair.

Visibly irritated, she stormed out of the room, leaving me alone with the two armed men. The brunette woman returned a few minutes later with a stepstool and a hairbrush. Standing on the stepstool, she undid my disheveled braid and began tackling the host of tangles with the hairbrush. Once my hair had been painfully brushed out to her satisfaction, she began rebraiding it. Her small hands pulled the groups of hair harshly into place.

A pair of boots and a thick pair of socks were then selected for me, and I put them on. The woman now stood back and inspected me. Frowning, she grabbed a handkerchief and rubbed it along my metal arm. When the limb was finally polished enough to meet her standards, she put a pair of black leather fingerless gloves on my hands. Standing back again, she resumed her scrutiny. The woman now wore an expression that was almost not disdainful of my appearance.

After a long sigh, she turned to the two armed men and said, "Я сделал все, что мог, учитывая то, что вы мне принесли. Теперь она твоя."

Each of the men grabbed one of my arms and marched me back out into the hallway. We walked for several minutes before entering another room. This one was filled with weapons: assault rifles, pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers, every type of combat knife imaginable, and things I could not even identify.

"Скоро здесь будет полковник Карпов," a young man in military fatigues informed the two armed men.

The man in the beret arrived a few minutes later and ordered, "Наденьте на нее оружейный пояс."

From that command, a long series of others followed. The man in the beret dictated a lengthy list of various weapons, which the young man would then locate and put on my person. I soon wore a vast array of holsters and weaponry.

A uniformed man entered the room and announced, "Самолет готов к работе."

After nodding that he had heard, the man in the beret began walking around me slowly. His calculating eyes examined every part of me.

"Наденьте на нее маску," he directed before leaving the room with the uniformed man.

Once half of my face was hidden behind the mask, the young man put a dark-colored sack over my head. A hand grabbed each of my arms, and my lack of vision forced me to follow their lead. Walking blindly was not hard, but navigating stairs presented challenges. At one point, we must have ridden in an elevator because I could feel the floor haltingly moving upwards.

A few minutes later, a loud metallic groan gave way to a cold, shrieking wind whipping all around me. What I could only assume to be snow crunched beneath my feet until the texture of the ground changed and began sloping upwards.

After the ramp leveled out at the top, the hands let go of my arms and sat me down. The drone of roaring engines now drowned out the wind's howls. As we began moving, I wondered what type of vehicle I was aboard. The breakneck taxiing speed and slight bump of leaving the ground all pointed to a plane. The next several hours were silent other than the sounds of the aircraft.

A swift descent gave way to the impact of landing. When the plane had reached a full stop, the two hands again grabbed my arms and led me down the ramp. The ground here was concrete with only light snow on it. As we continued walking, the snow disappeared, and my footsteps echoed back to me.

When the bag was finally removed from my head, I stood in an empty warehouse with two armed men and an IZH motorcycle in front of me.

"Добро пожаловать в Нижний Новгород, солдат."