' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) by Andy Farman Read Free Book Online Page B

Al’fa Odin from Al’fa Dvukh, over.”
    The duty watch keeper at Moscow Air Defence Centre had contacted Lt Col Boskoff regarding the major’s sighting report, and now Boskoff saw fit to give his deputy an ear blistering for wasting the time of the air defence forces and more seriously, embarrassing Lt Col Boskoff.
    Limanova stood his ground, explaining what had occurred and his intention to reconnoiter the old airstrip.
    “Phantom aircraft indeed…you are letting you imagination get the better of you, so get your head out of your ass and get your ass back here immediately Limanova…do you hear me? Immediately!” there was the briefest of pauses, too brief in fact to give even a one syllable reply “Al’fa Odin, out!”
    Like hell he was.
    He knew with absolute certainty something illicit was taking place at the airstrip and that a jet aircraft had taken off, and he was damned well going to prove it.
    The major reconnected Petrov’s headset lead, and acting as if nothing were untoward he sent Petrov away on point.
    Pulling the butt of his elderly AKM-74 into his shoulder he allowed Petrov to get ten feet ahead before he followed on. It was odd how less secure you felt at night the darker it grew he mused to himself, and turned to look back down the track briefly.
    Everything looked the same; he concluded and turned back, immediately feeling a stab of panic as he could no longer make out his driver.
    He increased his pace despite the way ahead being as black as pitch.
    He walked into the back of Petrov who had a moment before walked into the back of an armoured fighting vehicle which was sat unattended in the firebreak.
    It was a BMP-1, or to be more precise, it was their BMP-1.
    They had become completely turned around and had re-emerged from the trees close to where they had originally started out an hour or so before.
    “Okay, this is not as bad as it seems as I know exactly where we are now.”
    “You mean you didn’t know before, sir?”
The major ignored the remark and with a nudge directed Petrov to continue in the direction they had been heading.
    The logging trail was indeed where the map had shown it to be and Petrov followed it to the left, feeling more uneasy with every step that took them further away from the solid armour of his vehicle.
     
    Two pairs of ears registered a slight discord in the normal sounds of the night in this forest. Neither would be able to say precisely what it was, and a layman would use the term ‘sixth sense’, but it was that keenness of the senses that comes with being in tune with your environment.
    Neither man could see particularly well but they were after all a listening post and not of the observation variety.
    The earlier radio conversation had not gone unnoticed at the airstrip command post where they had been monitoring the radio transmissions of the militia, floundering about in the woods twelve miles away to the south. It was not something the Green Beret detachment was going to begin an immediate evacuation for, but half of a field radio conversation taking place just less than a mile north had caused concern.
    The listening posts rapid clicking of their transmission switch now initiated a general ‘stand-to’.
     
    Ten more minutes walking brought the major to where he believed the runway began to run parallel with the trail they were on.
    Now was the time to stop and listen.
    Despite the major’s conviction that there was some form of illegal activity that had taken place here, he nonetheless felt the need for some form of confirmation that he was in fact right, and therefore his immediate superior, the sub-district commander, was again wrong on all counts.
    He could smell the heather and the scent of the pine forest, he could hear the very faint rustle of some animal but he could discern nothing else.
    They broke track with Major Limanova taking point now, but after just a dozen steps another frightened hare broke from cover by his feet and crashed