Itty Bitty Bigger World - Russian Home
So, no shit, there I was, holding two jackers at gunpoint in my disabled rig.
In America, or even San San, no problemo. Just get the comms working and call in the cavalry.
In Mother Russia, problems no you. The folding carbine I was holding was _very_ illegal. It had been acquired lawfully but was not possessed legally - I hadn't had _that_ much bribe money when I'd set this pleasure jaunt up. Besides, who'd want to be a Russian citizen?
Also I'd shot a guy engaged in theft. Admittedly he had almost certainly shot at me first - if not him, then the other two slowly thawing out in the cab. But that cuts no ice, so to speak, when a foreign national waves guns around and shoots a local.
(Compare and contrast: a Mexican NAFTA driver shoots one of three Good Old Boys over a roadside dispute. How many days would the jury give him - in the electric chair?)
The temptation was to kick them out at gunpoint, tied up just enough to not mess with me but not enough to doom them to freeze, and drive away.
But these asshats had thoughtfully blown up the road in front of me and behind me. So they must have had a plan for getting the cargo. Which also meant they were lying about there only being the three of them.
"OK, my Russian friends whose names I don't care to remember, I'm going to execute you in three, two..."
"WAIT! WAIT, SIR, PLEASE!" the nearest one screeched.
"Why?" I asked. "Your friends will be here soon to kill me, so I'd better finish you off first. Nothing personal. Two, one..."
"We give you everything we have sir! We have a lifter! We have money, fuel, ammo, it's all yours, just don't kill us!"
"Do tell," I listened with my carbine on my knee. He tried to make it very convincing but I believed about one word in three.
After further negotiations, he admitted that they would have to use the radio to call for the lifter - they would get 30%, the lifter would take the rest. But they were starving, in the bunker in the snow, and 30% of something was better than 100% of dead. They hadn't the supplies to get through the winter.
I explained briefly that calling the lifter would mean 100% of the two of them dead, any way it came out. Then I told them they had to fix the mess they made.
"How do we do that, sir?"
I explained. They hated the idea. But when presented with the alternative, they were totally on board with it.
Any mess explosives can get you into, explosives can get you out of. At least when it comes to craters in the road. So one of them got to wear my backpack while I held the other at gunpoint, I walked them to retrieve my keys, then to their snowmobile, and they went 'home' to get some explosives. With a TelStar Logistics escort. Mwa.
The backpack still had the charming ability to shock the wearer on command. I would certainly, cheerfully shoot the other in the back of the head the instant he gave me trouble.
Their bunker home was all that you would expect of a forest hideout in deep Siberia. Trash, junk, various weapons they knew better than to touch, a few goodies (which I ignored) and some mining explosives of dubious merit. Well, they had worked twice.
They loaded the explosives and I supervised (see above) while they laid them in the crater.
BOOM. The rig's computer reluctantly admitted that the rig could drive over the crater.
I took the backpack off the one man. He seemed almost grateful. Then I gestured for both of them to climb down.
"You've been good, so I won't blow up your snowmobile before I leave. Go."
They climbed down, with several glances, sure they were going to get shot.
I locked the cab, pushed POWER ON and MAXIMUM TRACTION, and drove away.
About thirty hours later - I wasn't stopping for shit - the radio lit up on the EMER frequency. In the meantime, I'd been busy. Any flat spot the autopilot could take over, I was out of the seat just like that and working frantically.
"This is Russian Militia! You are ordered to STOP for INSPECTION!"
I opened the code book. "This is Alan Anderson of TelStar Logistics. What is your code of the day?"
They gave it. It checked out.
So I allowed the cab to shudder to a halt and climbed down to greet them. Three gunships, two troop transports.
At this point in the narrative, of course it would be Captain So-and-So of the Russian Militia, who had seen me save the boy, who would see me, raise a glass of vodka, cheer my heroism and send me on my way. But this is a Russian story. Russian narrative.
Instead I learned to suck snow while being expertly searched by professionals. The cab and drive train got the same treatment, including chemscanners.
"I am Colonel Vaskov. You are deep shit."
I nodded.
"Why you have explosive residue on front of cab?"
"There was a huge crater a ways back. I drove through it and jammed on the gas. Wanted nothing to do with it."
"You stop in crater area. You stop for six hours. You sleep?"
"I got stuck. I got unstuck."
"You pay off bandits?"
"With what?"
"You pay off bandits, American?" he asked with his Makarov. This interrogation by weapon stuff cuts both ways.
"No, I do not pay off bandits."
"Dead bandit by crater. Two bandits nearby. They say you shot him, held them at gunpoint, made them clear road. What do you say?"
"Bandits lie."
"So do American drivers."
I said nothing. He shrugged and put the Makarov away.
"Where is gun?"
"In your holster."
"You think you are funny. Is revocation of visa funny? Is prison funny? Is Siberian prison funny? Where fuck is gun!?!"
"What gun? I have no idea."
In fact I didn't, unless 'parts by side of road for last 100 kilometers' is a sufficient answer.
"You put out hands. You take off gloves."
So I put out my hands. They waved the chemscanner over them.
"Clear. Too clear," the Russian technician said.
"I wash my hands when I get nervous," I volunteered.
"You shut up, you answer questions."
I did not point out the dichotomy of the Colonel's statement.
"Your logs are flaky. You stop for six hours in heart of bandit area. Your cameras are kaputz. Your tires are shit. Your emergency braking system is more shit. But you have no cargo problems. Only your cab and you."
"You drive to next rest stop. I give you number one company. Russian elite troops. We talk there. I call TelStar, I ask questions, I ask favors. Maybe you legit. Maybe you bandit. American."
On that ambiguous statement, he parted company, but from some distance I heard him say - in clear English, "General, the driver's story seems to check out so far. I'm going to need some time here."
So three heavily armed Russian Militia troops climb up into my cab with me. They do not introduce themselves. Their weapons are their greeting to everybody.
They bring drinks and snacks. Clearly, except for charging their phones and making use of the satlink for entertainment (YouTube is a global phenomena), they plan to ignore me until we get to the rest stop.
So I power up and drive on until I get even shakier, a few hours later.
Finally, one of the troops turns off the controls. "You go bunk, you sleep. I drive."
I did as I was told.
###
I woke up as we were crossing into the fortified rest stop. The good Colonel and a squad of troops were waiting for us.
The Colonel squinted, looked carefully at the side of the rig, and started laughing. A good hearty Russian bear laugh.
"Dismissed!" he called to his men, and they climbed down. One whispered a few words in the Colonel's ear.
"So, my American friend who does not wash his hands when he is nervous, we have decided to let you keep the driving. I write reports. I justify this to my boss. Then you get here and I see 7.62mm bullet holes on the left side of your cab. Now I cannot unwrite reports nor can I unjustify to my boss."
I shrug carefully. What I want is a hot shower. What I don't want is a Russian prison.
"Your visa is post date. Expires when you cross border. You come back as tourist, OK. You come back as worker, OK. You come back as transient driver on Siberia Highway, not OK. You enjoy your last drive on highway. Here, you keep souvenir."
He tossed me something.
A cigarette lighter. One of the bandits had had it.
"That man is dead. Bandits kill way too many. Mercy to guilty is cruelty to innocent. Go home, Alan Anderson of TelStar Logistics hired for one way run out of Kurdistan, and you go tell Protocol Enforcement we watch them too."
He turned and walked away to his waiting gunship. I stumbled to my hot shower, which I really needed more than ever.
The side of the lighter had an emblem on it. A parachute with a wolf danging from it, oversize fangs holding an AK in its mouth.
The Colonel had one as a tattoo on the back of his right hand, when he'd threatened me with the pistol.
I'd been holding at gunpoint two men of the Russian Special Forces. Spetznaz. The most dangerous tourists in the world.
If my guard had slipped, even once. If I had lost track of them, even once. Horrible death in the middle of nowhere. Slow, with a knife.
I made it to the shower before I threw up.
In America, or even San San, no problemo. Just get the comms working and call in the cavalry.
In Mother Russia, problems no you. The folding carbine I was holding was _very_ illegal. It had been acquired lawfully but was not possessed legally - I hadn't had _that_ much bribe money when I'd set this pleasure jaunt up. Besides, who'd want to be a Russian citizen?
Also I'd shot a guy engaged in theft. Admittedly he had almost certainly shot at me first - if not him, then the other two slowly thawing out in the cab. But that cuts no ice, so to speak, when a foreign national waves guns around and shoots a local.
(Compare and contrast: a Mexican NAFTA driver shoots one of three Good Old Boys over a roadside dispute. How many days would the jury give him - in the electric chair?)
The temptation was to kick them out at gunpoint, tied up just enough to not mess with me but not enough to doom them to freeze, and drive away.
But these asshats had thoughtfully blown up the road in front of me and behind me. So they must have had a plan for getting the cargo. Which also meant they were lying about there only being the three of them.
"OK, my Russian friends whose names I don't care to remember, I'm going to execute you in three, two..."
"WAIT! WAIT, SIR, PLEASE!" the nearest one screeched.
"Why?" I asked. "Your friends will be here soon to kill me, so I'd better finish you off first. Nothing personal. Two, one..."
"We give you everything we have sir! We have a lifter! We have money, fuel, ammo, it's all yours, just don't kill us!"
"Do tell," I listened with my carbine on my knee. He tried to make it very convincing but I believed about one word in three.
After further negotiations, he admitted that they would have to use the radio to call for the lifter - they would get 30%, the lifter would take the rest. But they were starving, in the bunker in the snow, and 30% of something was better than 100% of dead. They hadn't the supplies to get through the winter.
I explained briefly that calling the lifter would mean 100% of the two of them dead, any way it came out. Then I told them they had to fix the mess they made.
"How do we do that, sir?"
I explained. They hated the idea. But when presented with the alternative, they were totally on board with it.
Any mess explosives can get you into, explosives can get you out of. At least when it comes to craters in the road. So one of them got to wear my backpack while I held the other at gunpoint, I walked them to retrieve my keys, then to their snowmobile, and they went 'home' to get some explosives. With a TelStar Logistics escort. Mwa.
The backpack still had the charming ability to shock the wearer on command. I would certainly, cheerfully shoot the other in the back of the head the instant he gave me trouble.
Their bunker home was all that you would expect of a forest hideout in deep Siberia. Trash, junk, various weapons they knew better than to touch, a few goodies (which I ignored) and some mining explosives of dubious merit. Well, they had worked twice.
They loaded the explosives and I supervised (see above) while they laid them in the crater.
BOOM. The rig's computer reluctantly admitted that the rig could drive over the crater.
I took the backpack off the one man. He seemed almost grateful. Then I gestured for both of them to climb down.
"You've been good, so I won't blow up your snowmobile before I leave. Go."
They climbed down, with several glances, sure they were going to get shot.
I locked the cab, pushed POWER ON and MAXIMUM TRACTION, and drove away.
About thirty hours later - I wasn't stopping for shit - the radio lit up on the EMER frequency. In the meantime, I'd been busy. Any flat spot the autopilot could take over, I was out of the seat just like that and working frantically.
"This is Russian Militia! You are ordered to STOP for INSPECTION!"
I opened the code book. "This is Alan Anderson of TelStar Logistics. What is your code of the day?"
They gave it. It checked out.
So I allowed the cab to shudder to a halt and climbed down to greet them. Three gunships, two troop transports.
At this point in the narrative, of course it would be Captain So-and-So of the Russian Militia, who had seen me save the boy, who would see me, raise a glass of vodka, cheer my heroism and send me on my way. But this is a Russian story. Russian narrative.
Instead I learned to suck snow while being expertly searched by professionals. The cab and drive train got the same treatment, including chemscanners.
"I am Colonel Vaskov. You are deep shit."
I nodded.
"Why you have explosive residue on front of cab?"
"There was a huge crater a ways back. I drove through it and jammed on the gas. Wanted nothing to do with it."
"You stop in crater area. You stop for six hours. You sleep?"
"I got stuck. I got unstuck."
"You pay off bandits?"
"With what?"
"You pay off bandits, American?" he asked with his Makarov. This interrogation by weapon stuff cuts both ways.
"No, I do not pay off bandits."
"Dead bandit by crater. Two bandits nearby. They say you shot him, held them at gunpoint, made them clear road. What do you say?"
"Bandits lie."
"So do American drivers."
I said nothing. He shrugged and put the Makarov away.
"Where is gun?"
"In your holster."
"You think you are funny. Is revocation of visa funny? Is prison funny? Is Siberian prison funny? Where fuck is gun!?!"
"What gun? I have no idea."
In fact I didn't, unless 'parts by side of road for last 100 kilometers' is a sufficient answer.
"You put out hands. You take off gloves."
So I put out my hands. They waved the chemscanner over them.
"Clear. Too clear," the Russian technician said.
"I wash my hands when I get nervous," I volunteered.
"You shut up, you answer questions."
I did not point out the dichotomy of the Colonel's statement.
"Your logs are flaky. You stop for six hours in heart of bandit area. Your cameras are kaputz. Your tires are shit. Your emergency braking system is more shit. But you have no cargo problems. Only your cab and you."
"You drive to next rest stop. I give you number one company. Russian elite troops. We talk there. I call TelStar, I ask questions, I ask favors. Maybe you legit. Maybe you bandit. American."
On that ambiguous statement, he parted company, but from some distance I heard him say - in clear English, "General, the driver's story seems to check out so far. I'm going to need some time here."
So three heavily armed Russian Militia troops climb up into my cab with me. They do not introduce themselves. Their weapons are their greeting to everybody.
They bring drinks and snacks. Clearly, except for charging their phones and making use of the satlink for entertainment (YouTube is a global phenomena), they plan to ignore me until we get to the rest stop.
So I power up and drive on until I get even shakier, a few hours later.
Finally, one of the troops turns off the controls. "You go bunk, you sleep. I drive."
I did as I was told.
###
I woke up as we were crossing into the fortified rest stop. The good Colonel and a squad of troops were waiting for us.
The Colonel squinted, looked carefully at the side of the rig, and started laughing. A good hearty Russian bear laugh.
"Dismissed!" he called to his men, and they climbed down. One whispered a few words in the Colonel's ear.
"So, my American friend who does not wash his hands when he is nervous, we have decided to let you keep the driving. I write reports. I justify this to my boss. Then you get here and I see 7.62mm bullet holes on the left side of your cab. Now I cannot unwrite reports nor can I unjustify to my boss."
I shrug carefully. What I want is a hot shower. What I don't want is a Russian prison.
"Your visa is post date. Expires when you cross border. You come back as tourist, OK. You come back as worker, OK. You come back as transient driver on Siberia Highway, not OK. You enjoy your last drive on highway. Here, you keep souvenir."
He tossed me something.
A cigarette lighter. One of the bandits had had it.
"That man is dead. Bandits kill way too many. Mercy to guilty is cruelty to innocent. Go home, Alan Anderson of TelStar Logistics hired for one way run out of Kurdistan, and you go tell Protocol Enforcement we watch them too."
He turned and walked away to his waiting gunship. I stumbled to my hot shower, which I really needed more than ever.
The side of the lighter had an emblem on it. A parachute with a wolf danging from it, oversize fangs holding an AK in its mouth.
The Colonel had one as a tattoo on the back of his right hand, when he'd threatened me with the pistol.
I'd been holding at gunpoint two men of the Russian Special Forces. Spetznaz. The most dangerous tourists in the world.
If my guard had slipped, even once. If I had lost track of them, even once. Horrible death in the middle of nowhere. Slow, with a knife.
I made it to the shower before I threw up.