Mayoral Recall

January 29, 1987

Near Kaplav, Romny

The small convoy of canvas-backed T815 trucks rushed northwards along the highway, risking becoming the prey of a VVS Su-25 or MiG-27 to reach the Romn 55th Artillery Battalion before they ran out of shells. This area was one of the few pockets covered by RALD air defenses still, the driver reasoned. They could afford the risk one time; once the run had been made they could take a little more time getting home. From the side of the four-lane roadway, two hidden figures observed the unexpected appearance. They'd been told the Romns were sticking to back roads exclusively now that Frontal Aviation was rampaging across the country. But the two men also had been given more patience than the average human being.

"Should we report them either way?" One said in a voice that was soft, even for a whisper.

"No, let their haste kill them. They'll likely be found by at least one of our pilots. We have our own assignment, comrade." The other replied in an equally quiet voice.

Officially the men didn't exist at all. They had never joined the Yuktobanian Army, they had never been recruited from the Yuktobanian's paratrooper forces, the VDV, into the much-vaunted "Spetsnaz". In fact they weren't even lying on the side of the road, hidden from view. The two dark-haired, athletic men had never even been born. Unofficially the complete opposite was true. The two men simply known as "Dmitri" and "Viktor" (false names) were very much here, and they were very much a part of the GRU Spetsnaz. The orders for today had brought the two-man sniper team to Kaplav, Romny to help break the town's resistance before it could slow the advance south. Their target was the mayor; the city's morale rested heavily in his popularity amongst its citizens.

With the trucks gone, the sniper team hurried across the road to the center berm, only staying there temporarily before running again to the far side. Dmitri, the spotter, kept an eye out while Viktor ran across the other half of the road. Dmitri followed him soon after into the tree line on the opposite side. Once again they became a part of the scenery and resumed a steady crawl through the wilderness. On the other side of the trees was a long, steep slope that descended into Kaplav. The two wanted to get a good idea of what Romn forces were positioned at the edges of the city. The two men quietly didn't trust the KGB's reports to be totally accurate; they were usually more to make things sound good.

Viktor crawled under a log and stopped to listen. He heard nothing in the immediate area, only Dmitri behind him and the occasional sign of wildlife in the forest. Late afternoon light poked through the trees, bathing the entire area in a light almost like that of a Grimm fairy tale. Viktor quietly admired the scenery; such a horrible place to ruin with war. Hopefully the men in Cinnigrad could agree and restore the trees that were destroyed after all of this. A man of communism should learn to appreciate nature, he always believed. He brushed by a tall tree and stopped again, looking and listening for any sounds of human activity.

The forest seemed dead; Viktor wondered if the citizens of the city were staying inside their home, "circling the wagons" as the Oseans said. It worked all the better for him. When the two reached the edge of the woods, they paused to observe the city before they descended into it. Just past the bottom of the slope was the start of a large railyard that served two mammoth-sized production plants. Viktor slid forward a pair of binoculars and scanned downrange for some kind of opening. The plant wasn't running, but he saw lines of Skoda-brand cars sitting in what he'd initially thought were employee parking lots. A close examination of the plant revealed it'd been hit by something, likely a bomb.

He felt Dmitri poke him and looked over. The man pointed down towards the rail yard and drew attention to several closely clustered box cars and engines. Dmitri eased a map up to his field of vision and constantly looked back at the rail cars. One rail curved away from the main line and then split into multiple tracks again that ran by long, low warehouses. Beyond that were sheds to store the engines, and final a road curved into a U-shape. The first parts of the city began there. Beyond that the city hall was about three kilometers, near the town's taller buildings and town square. The entire way showed signs of the air war the VVS had been waging.

"Our best route lies there." Dmitri nodded.

"Very well then, let's go."

The descent down the slope was an unnerving affair, even for the two elite men. Much of it was low grass with large patches of mud hidden beneath the slowly melting snow. The two had to pick through it like they would a minefield, using their knives to detect patches of the soft ground and hurry around them. Constant glances across the large industrial complex revealed little, at least for now. Viktor found this troubling; the Yuktobanian army was maybe two or three days away. Why wasn't the mayor or whoever was in charge here doing something to stop people like him? Or were they walking into some kind of trap? Viktor softly whistled to Dmitri to stop and slid out his binoculars again. He still didn't see anything in the rail yard. Viktor lowered his binoculars and grimaced.

After a few minutes they returned to moving down the slope to a chain-link fence. Dmitri went to work with a pair of wire cutters while Viktor took up an over watch position. They made a hole just big enough to crawl through and set the section cut off halfway over the whole to disguise it for a while. From there the two were free to run from car to car. Dmitri took point, armed with the Spetsnaz's newest toy: the AS Val. He carefully went up and through the open doors of one box car, then down onto the other side. Viktor had gone to his silenced PB pistol in the tight space. They maneuvered between another two cars and then hid under the final ones before they'd have to dash about 25 meters across the last rail line and the open grounds to the nearest warehouse. The only life to be seen was a few birds.

Viktor leaned forward a little and saw that the warehouse to their right was empty. The writing above labeled it as being for incoming shipments. No wonder, he thought. The one to the left was closed up, though. Viktor squinted and saw what looked to be a padlock. His curiosity poked him, but he held back. Instead he looked towards the warehouse on the right and glanced around again.

"…Okay, go!" Dmitri hissed.

Viktor shuffled out from under the car and ran across the open space. It felt like a mile. Each step over the snow and the concrete felt louder and louder with each passing second. Every window seemed to have a shadow in it. Viktor was holding his breath until he was throwing himself against the wall at the corner of the building. He flashed a look into the open garage door of the warehouse and then motioned Dmitri over. The man made the run and took cover behind a pile of wooden pallets and peeked over down the way towards the city's inner areas. The two men hurried down the length of the warehouse, sweeping their weapons left and right as they hurried for the end and the slowly growing cover of the urban sprawl.

Dmitri went first, running towards an employee bus stop and parking lot of some sort. He crouched behind a bench and looked over before peeking over and waving Viktor on. The sniper ran after his spotter under the last bits of daylight and then hurried on to a few service vehicles sitting in the lot. Dmitri rejoined him and the two eyed the gate to the railyard before they spotted the headlights of a jeep. The two watched as a GAZ slowed in front of the gate and two soldiers in the garb of the Romn National Militia (RNM) jumped out from the back. One ran to the gate and fumbled with what the two Yuktobanians guessed was a locked and then the two pulled open the device. The two men, armed with Vz.52 rifles, ran forward and manned the guard booth just outside the gate. The man still in the jeep drove it forward and pulled off to the gate's left, opposite the guard post.

After a minute, several T815s rolled through the gate and sped down the road and veered left, then down the space between the two warehouses. Dmitri dared crawl out from under the truck and back towards the bus stop so he could see what the trucks were doing. The rear truck disgorged more trench coat-clad RNM troops. Several men ran to the locked warehouse and began opening the structure while others positioned themselves to form a semi-circle.

"That is quite a number of men…" Dmitri observed in an annoyed tone.

Dmitri saw other uniforms hurrying out to the space right of the convoy.

He recognized the universal hardhats and reflective coveralls of construction workers. They hauled wooden boxes on their shoulders but he couldn't tell what the writing on them was. He guessed either supplies…or maybe dynamite. Either way Dmitri had no time to fool around playing detective; he'd see to it that their superiors knew what happened. He crawled back and snuck back to Viktor as the beams of flashlights started to sweep about.

"We need to get through that gate." Viktor observed sourly.

"Should we find a different route" Dmitri suggested. The sniper shook his head.

"This is the route that'll get us there fastest. We already lost time descending the slope; we cannot afford to lose much more.

"The guards will be missed at some point."

"We must pick our poison…besides, we can find another way out. We've been through worse, Dmitri."

"We had immediate backup in Tyumen."

"We can either sit here debating or we can accomplish our mission. I'd rather not have some deteriorating party member use us as a scapegoat for any failures."

"Very well…get the man at the jeep. I'll get the men around the shack. I'll knock on the door, get em out. Shoot the man by the jeep as soon as I start shooting."

Dmitri and Viktor stayed low and pressed towards the dark, empty areas of the parking lot, using what few cars were around to hide. There were also a few piles of plowed snow to hide behind. When in the open, they stayed low and fast, using hell-to-toe motions. The guards had the GAZ's headlights aimed down the road leading to the gate. Apparently those and the streetlamps on outside the compound made them feel safe. The Spetsnaz enjoyed their own smiles of satisfaction; the militia was numerous, but they were not career soldiers. Two elite soldiers could easily out-think and out-maneuver them. They ended up next to the fence, where they began moving directly towards the guard post. As they got closer, Dmitri traded his AS Val for his PB as he approached the shack. The two men stopped a few feet away and checked with each other via hand signals.

Viktor moved to the left and lay down, raising the PB and waited for Dmitri to do his thing. Dmitri rapped his knuckled against the small shack's door twice and moved back. One of the men, rifle at the ready, burst out and looked in both directions. As he saw Dmitri, the Yuke's silenced pistol coughed. At the same time Viktor put two rounds into the far man's neck area. The militiaman fell clutching his throat. As the last man rushed out, Dmitri shot him in the side of the head.

"No time to hide the bodies." Viktor cursed.

"Then let us not be around when the others come looking." Dmitri agreed.

Relieved their gamble had paid off, the two hurried into the city beyond the train yard. The hurried down into a drainage ditch running parallel to the road. Despite that, they needed to pick up the pace now. If the clock hadn't been against them at the start of this mission, it surely was against them now…

The town hall had been transformed into a fortress. Sandbag emplacements surrounded the four-story building and its bell tower. Windows were blacked out or covered in wood and metal bars. Helmeted militia manned DShK machine guns at the bottom of the front stairs, nervously swiveling them about in search of targets. At least two patrols trotted around the building. A pair of OT-64 SKOTs waited near a black limousine in front of the place. KGB intelligence had determined the man, Mayor Kuba Marek, had been staying here even as his city was hit and threatened. He brazenly made speeches defying the Yuktobanians, rallying his entire city to act as the cut that would bleed the Yuktobanian Bear dry. Today that stopped, and in a few days the Yuktobanians hoped to roll over a broken and demoralized city.

"It is almost time…" Dmitri mumbled.

The two snipers had set up in an office building directly across the square to get the best shot. The shot would be a little over 550 meters and they'd be using a silencer for the shot. Once again stealth was at the fore; the two men would be moving as soon as the bullet hit the mayor. They would escape into the sewers and then find places to the West of the city to lay low until the offensive started. With the Romns distracted by the offensive, they'd then head north and be picked up by a helicopter on a "scouting mission".

Viktor's eye flicked towards the OT-64s, both of which were surrounded by militiamen. The men guarding them looked bored, as if this were some kind of peacetime motorcade escort. The Spetsnaz man pondered why this mayor's men didn't seem to reflect the spirit he tried to instill in them. Maybe the bombs and rockets that came down from Yuktobanian planes had broken that. Maybe the fact that the world's largest army was about to be on their doorstep. Either way Viktor didn't care. They wanted to be tempted by the evils of political and social reform. The thought of a potential Osean ally on Yuktobania's border was not what was needed as Yuktobania struggled.

Still, there were quiet a number of men for this. Viktor wondered if the word of the three dead men had gotten out, but he didn't count on it changing much. The city had been under attack since the war had started; the people surely couldn't be surprised by such things now. He adjusted his grip on his sniper rifle once again and flexed his fingers to keep them from getting stiff. Viktor had chosen a Steyr SSG 69 for the job. The foreign rifle had been taken so as to allow for a silencer and because the Wellowans made some of the finest guns possible. Success would be guaranteed in Viktor's mind.

"Guards coming out of the front doors." Dmitri grunted.

Viktor flexed his hand one more time before taking up his firing posture. He stared across the square at the doors of the town hall. Several militiamen, these ones visibly better armed and protected, hurried out and lined the stairs of the hall. Marek came out quickly, hunched forward and heading for the limo. Time seemed to slow for Viktor. He adjusted his breathing pattern and gripped the rifle tightly. The sniper rested the center of the scope's crosshairs at the landing halfway down the stairs. He could barely see Marek's face but he knew it from photos. Narrow chin, squinty eyes, wide smile and graying black hair. Viktor made sure to place the bullet in the man's face to destroy the visage that people looked to.

The shot was quick, and Viktor only stayed in position to confirm the man was down. He felt the rifle push against his arm even tighter for a second and cycled the bolt before flicking the spent casing across the room into a rubble-filled corner. Red blood started to spread across the pavement as soldiers scrambled to help, several took up position and looked around for targets. Viktor crawled back towards the nearest doorway while Dmitri took up position and covered their escape. Viktor covered their back while they pressed down the central stairs. They exited at the first floor above the ground, hurdling onto a trash dumpster and into a long alleyway that ran parallel to the street in front of the building. They were long gone by the time the first RNM troops approached the side of the square they'd been on…

It was a city at war, but the people of Kaplav didn't care. The marched slowly and quietly down the avenue of the city leading to Kaplav's largest graveyard. Most were old men, women, and children as the men were almost all off to fight. A few RNM troops walked alongside the group, and a small honor guard had been formed for the march that would take Kuba Marek to his grave. His caskets was decorated with flowers and covered with the Romn flag that'd been in his office. Mourners at the front carried portraits of the man, smiling and confident.

As they crossed an intersection, a low rumbled sounded to the north. A few looked back as more thunderclaps followed. None of the people scattered or went for cover. They all simply stared for a minute, and then began marching again. Meanwhile the Yuktobanian Army marched south with its sights set on Kaplav. The fight so many had deemed inevitable was finally coming into existence.