Primal Gambit

Chapter 13: Vikhr's Proposal

The guerilla sat in front of the quaint café sipping a chipped mug of black coffee. The neutralizing beverage soothed the rage coursing his veins, the distant clap of gunfire and thunder of shells had become metronomic to those still residing within the two-faced city of Omsk. One block would be tattered in shambles yet still salvageable, the next reduced to cinders. Entire complexes had buckled at the knees by extensive artillery, collapsing on weak support and crumbling to the dust.

The marble floor was tiled from door to counter, each tainted a dull yellow, bearing cracked mosaic glass. Vikhr's equipment rested beside his chair, a mess of survival tools and weapons designed specifically by the warrior to maim to the point of death. He sat alone, breathing in the crisp, arid air. Siberia evolved into desert terrain when it became threatened by the onset of war and over-population. It had once been the brute's home, until he was forced to flee due to genocide against his people. Native Siberians were being driven to extinction by the "True Russian", a moniker given to the severely right-winged terror group based within the foothills surrounding Novgorod.

Now he sat; time away from contract work for the country that best suited his allegiances as a native was time he spent pursuing options that would lend the monetary opportunity to purchase armament and his own hand-picked group of mercenaries.

The name of the contract killer he had crossed years ago escaped him. With every sip of coffee he stared at his archaic cell phone, awaiting one call that would light the fuse. The mug looked like a shot glass in his paws, his forearm bracers composed of rough metal plating and coiled rope.

For a moment, he forgot the reason why his flip phone sat atop the rusted, grated table. Instead he began to recreate his run-in with the merc, just three years prior. With one hand, he grazed his senseless fingertips over the scar that dressed his bicep.

The day was exceptionally hot. The stench of death lingered heavily in the baking noonday sun. Blisterclouds had set in at early dawn and some foreign Western soldiers' skin had already begun to boil and bubble. Pus drizzled down sticky arms, but not those belonging to Vikhr. Having been born under such wretched conditions, his rough hide had grown resilient to the harsh weather.

Of the battalion that had been dispatched that morning, over half were forced to revert to a small village on the outskirts of Koryakia. Vikhr was one of the few to press on with the rest of the troops. He sat half-assed atop the treads of a roving tank, his cannon poised against his shoulder and aimed at the hills. The mission was to capture a town 30 kilometers out, but they were being stalked. The lone road on which they travelled was perfect for an ambush, the grizzled native remembered remarking to a foreigner the prime angle at which one could watch the brigade.

He took another sip of coffee and watched a couple running through the streets, carrying their most sentimental belongings. The man held a small child under his arm as they hustled. The faraway gunfire brought him back.

It was minutes later that IEDs detonated in the front of the pack. Two tanks were ensconced with fire. The explosions tore the asphalt from the road and threw it into the air as if it were confetti. As soldiers jumped from the tanks and hid for cover an RPG cascaded from the hill and into the rear tank, decimating the wheelhouse and defiling the treads from the track. The men were trapped.

Vikhr leapt from the roving death-dealer and bounded forward into a rise of boulders. Just then the silhouettes of men began to appear in the hills above, bearing automatic weapons and opening fire on the helpless group. The mercenary hid in an alcove behind the rocks. This wasn't his fight by any means and as such he wasn't going to die trying to save the foreigners. It was accepting missions like these that forced Vikhr to question the choices of his superiors.