Liberators

Making Plans

Chapter Nine: Making Plans

Rivymiyitevko Air Force Base

October 6, 2008 1150 Rivymiyitevko time (0750 Krakozhian time)

General Ivan Buranovich Penin stepped out of his car and into the cold Arctic wind. Despite the fact that Rivymiyitevko was unusually warm for a place above the Arctic Circle, it still had to suffer winds reaching up to negative seven degrees Celsius. And there were also the daily showers at noon that someone could set his watch to. Nobody knew why it happened until recently, when it was discovered that the skies above Rivymiyitevko were the crossroads of three different wind systems, which caused the daily phenomena.

Although he shivered in his greatcoat, Penin took the cold wind as a good sign. It usually meant that there would only be a light rain later, and he needed the weather to cooperate on his mission.

"Is my private plane being prepared?" he asked his aide.

"Yes, General," replied Igor Sazanin. "But, if I may, can I ask you what could be so urgent that it could call you away from your command during a critical time?"

"I have been ordered by President Benin to come to the capital," Penin replied. "He has an urgent matter to discuss with me."

Sazanin understood what the general meant. "Surely you have nothing that will cast you in a suspicious light, General?"

"Of course I haven't, Igor, but you never know."

They walked towards a dull white aircraft that had white spots which showed where the roundel of the Krakozhian Air Force had once been before it was painted over by Rivymiyitevko forces. It was a Consolidated Fleetster, made in the United States in the early 1930s, and capable of flying eight passengers in relative comfort. It was one of the last Fleetsters in existence, and possibly the only one still airworthy. It had once belonged to the commander of the Rivymiyitevko Air Militia for flights between the base and Sonolovichyrevko before Penin took it as his private plane. Its eight-piston engine was already turning at a comfortable rate, and the pilot was already finished with his pre-flight checklist.

"Ivan, kindly open the door for me," Penin told his bodyguard, who immediately complied.

"One more thing, Igor," Penin told Sazanin. "If you do not hear from me, assume the worst and take command."

"Yes, sir."

Malenkov watched as Penin's Consolidated Fleetster took off into the Arctic sky. From the bits of conversation that he heard between Penin and Sazanin, he could assume that the general had been ordered back to Sonolovichyrevko by Benin, but for what reasons, he didn't bother to know.

He barely twitched as Captain Ashchenko walked up beside him. "Is he going to leave us here?" he asked the major.

"I have no idea of what he's doing. Tanya, did anything come over the wire?"

"No, Major, not a thing," replied Numistatova.

"By the way, what did the girl you met yesterday tell you?"

"I'll tell you inside the hut. The rains are about to come."

The trio entered Malenkov's hut just as the rains began to fall. The raindrops falling on the galvanized steel roof were like so many pebbles falling from the sky. Malenkov sat down on his bed and said, "I think that girl was from the Spetsnaz. She had the air of a special forces type—trust me, I've seen the type. She had someone else with her, a blond man with a machine gun, probably their strategist. Anyway, the girl told me that the Krakozhians were coming."