War with Russia

Inside, it was warm, dry and comfortable and reminded him of Badger’s den from Wind in the Willows. The steps descended into an underground room. One side wall was taken up by a large map of Latvia, a table and radios; another by a table, upon which sat a two-ringed, camping-gas cooker. A low door led to another room lined by bunks. A generator hummed quietly, providing power to run an air-conditioning system, the radios and a battery charger. In another cramped space off the bunkroom were a chemical toilet and metal camp basin.

Twenty yards across the clearing in the forest was a second bunker set up as a store facility. One room was lined with shelves on which were stacked Latvian Army 24-hour ration packs, batteries, ammunition, claymore mines and explosives. A second, bigger room contained Stinger hand-held SAMs, old Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons with their still highly effective HEAT ammunition, and six motocross motorbikes together with fuel and spares.

All very comfy, but it’s not going to win the war, thought Morland, we’ve got to find a way to get the Russians onto the back foot. I’m not going to hang around here indefinitely playing Hansel and Gretel.

Sergeant Danny Wild handed him a mug of tea. Morland took a sip. It was strong and sweetened, Latvian-style, with honey. “Thanks sarge, just what was needed. It was getting pretty chilly out there.”

“Brad’s just received a message by data burst from PJHQ,” said Wild quietly. “They’ve picked up SigInt and from Russian soldiers tweeting that a senior Russian general and an unnamed high-profile VIP could be flying into Riga by helicopter in the next couple of days. They want to talk to you at greater length.”

“Let’s run it past these guys,” replied Morland, moving over to where Krastiņš and Krauja were conferring urgently in Latvian.

Krauja turned to Morland. “The Russians have announced on Latvian State Radio that any partisans hiding in the forest will be treated as traitors, uniform or no uniform, and shot. They’ve promised to trawl through the forests and flush out any guerrillas.”

“That’s hardly a surprise,” said Morland. Then he explained what Bradley had just picked up from PJHQ and that they wanted a longer conversation. “We’ll need to get at least twenty kilometers away from here, as they’ll zero in on our broadcast location once we start talking. That will be followed by an air strike, probably followed by a company of paras within about thirty to forty minutes. Although they won’t know what we’re saying as it is encrypted.”

“That might give us just the opportunity we’re looking for. To hit them hard and where they least expect it,” Krauja said, with a steely look in her eye.

Krastiņš joined in. “We can use your call, Tom, as a come-on and set up an anti-aircraft ambush. We’ve got the Stingers here in the store and I’ve been itching to use them.”

“Who knows, this may even create an opportunity to have a go at this high-profile VIP,” added Krauja.

“A perfect come-on,” Morland said. He knew all about come-ons from his training and had listened to the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan describe how everything the enemy did had to be viewed as a possible come-on; the initial incident being the lure to draw you in for the main attack. And, of course, as far as the Russians were concerned, he and the Forest Brothers were no more than terrorists. Which meant he had to start thinking like one, if he was going to survive. Krastiņš was right, once the Russians realized it was an encrypted transmission, they’d have to investigate and in this terrain, that had to mean by air.

“OK, Jānis, we’ve got a sked, a pre-planned radio call, in six hours, so we need to get moving. Where do you suggest we do it from?”

“Let’s get close to Ligatne, the old Soviet underground command bunker where we left our vehicles. That’s bound to wind up the Russians. No one knows the forest tracks here better than my guys. Your team can ride pillion. Let’s go.”

Later, after a short but exhilarating high-speed motocross journey along forest tracks, on the backs of six high-performance bikes ridden by the Latvian Special Forces, Morland, Krauja and the team, together with two Stinger anti-aircraft missile launchers, were in all-round defense in a harbor area, five kilometers from the old underground bunker at Ligatne. Bradley had set up the Harris Falcon satellite link to PJHQ.

Morland slipped the headset over his ears and adjusted the throat microphone, then had a sudden thought.

“What’s my call sign, Brad?” he asked the giant Kiwi.

“Penda One, boss.”

“Who the hell’s Penda?” asked Morland.

“Come on, boss. You should know. He was a seventh-century king of the Mercians. A real heathen bastard,” grinned Bradley.