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Chapter 5 The Great Escape
The commander opened the
door and climbed in, eyes wide with fear. “You have to
get away, now! They want me as much as anyone does; I’m
a sitting duck if I stay here. This is my one chance of
escape and I won’t let you blow it.” He got out of the car to inspect the damage. Apart from having a flat tyre his car had ever increasing dents down the left hand side, culminating in a rather large hole where the rear light was recently apparent. “Doubt this thing would pass an MOT at the moment. The quarter-panels are totalled and we’re missing one rear light. Looks like we’ll need to get this fixed, anyone got any money?” At this moment, the commander, with a revolver aimed at his head, decided now would be the perfect time to lend a hand. After all, these guys helped him to escape from Yugorovski. “No money, but I can fix any automobile with any problem. I’ve got the skills. I mean, before being appointed by Yugorovski I was part of the British mechanic corps.” “All I need is a hammer and a jack, and I could fix this with no problem.” A few minutes later, after Gustav handed one of his daggers to the Commander, they were on the road. Handing it back to Gustav, the Commander apologised about the state of what was a decently maintained knife, up until that point. “You may need a replacement dagger. The hilt, I’d say, has seen better days.” Gustav stared at one of his prized possessions, the dagger that used to be his fathers, with a strange blade and an even stranger hilt and surveyed the damage. “What have you done to it? Do you know just how rare these blades are, do you know what the replacement costs would be?!” The commander stared quizzically, “Yeah, I know, these were mine before your father got them, I say got, what I actually mean is stole, you see, I loaned them to your father but I never actually got them back. Of course I know the rarity and the catalogued price of these, considering they were mine before they were yours.” “That’s crazy-talk; anyway what do you mean he stole them off you. He’s been dead for ages, ever since the peace-keeping exercise that cost him his life.” “Ah, yes. Almost forgot about that. After the battle I sent those daggers to his sons. After all, I wanted them to have some heirlooms of their father, even though they weren’t particularly good ones. I am, or was Commander Eugene La Salle, of the 32nd peace-keeper squadron. You’re right, these belong to you, now, and your father always wanted me to leave you something of his. “I was there at his funeral. Of course I was there for them all, and watched as all those snide political weeds send the rest of my troop on another pointless war. So I left, and joined Yugorovski, he seemed a good guy at the time but, it didn’t last. Eventually, I hated him like I hated every other politician. “Thanks for freeing me; I only hope I can pay you back someday.” Driving off, their first stop was the petrol station, as the Commander was the only one with money he fuelled the car. Slowly they came up to the fuel-depot, the car running on fumes. With a demonic efficiency they yanked the fuel hose into the tank, and watched as the money thay were paying for an ever-increasing amount of petrol went up and up. Soon, the tank was full and it started with almost no prompting from the driver, the last run doing the car good. As slow as they came, the speed in which they left was frightening. Up the road came a heavily modified FWD Cavalier. Eugene recognised him, 2nd Grade Lieutenant Barakov. Barakov was a racer, before he enlisted for Yugorovski’s horde he was a gifted auto-mechanic and 2nd in the Ukrainian snow rally championship. Now, he was one of Yugorovski’s favourite leaders, the head of 10 elites of his own. Jumping in he shouted, “Start the car, Gustav!! Start the car!” Inserting the key, and twisting Gustav injected some life from the now fully fuelled Larda. Sticking his foot to the floor he accelerated off as fast as this little car could. It seemed to take forever, and the Opel was catching them. On the other side of the car was one of Barakov’s trusted men. Hoisting a rocket launcher from the back seat on to his shoulder he leaned through the window. As soon as he got the little car in his sights he fired. Gustav turned the car off the road as fast as he could, hoping that the jumps and uneven surface would prevent the other guy from shooting again. The rocket hit a tree, decimating the wooden frame as fragments got catapulted through the air. Barakov knew they had entered his domain; dirt-track racing. He smiled, a psychotic grin of pure evil. That was the last mistake they’d ever make. Turning quickly he used the momentum to turn the rear of the car through an eighth of a circle. Now, the tyres squabbled with the surface for grip. Finally, after a few tenths of a second they bit. One way or another, this was going to be over very quickly. Gustav gunned his car as fast as it would go over the uneven terrain, gripping the wheel as tightly as possible, his knuckles completely white and his eyes concentrating madly on the expanse ahead. Again, the guy in the Cavalier leaned himself out of the window and shot another rocket at them. One time too many, he got flung out of the back of the car, he died on impact with the ground. Barakov bared his teeth, this would be tougher then he thought as now he had to ram the escapees off the beaten track. Chances were, though, he would succeed in the objective. There was no way that they could outrun them in a pathetically slow Soviet car. He was a Soviet and he thought it was rubbish. That says something. Gustav was pushing his car into the red zone, sooner or later the car would go. Dafs and Terrik nodded at each other and each picked up their assault weapon. They leaned out of the rear windows and manoeuvred their gun-sights to their targets. Letting off a few series of quick bursts they got back in and reloaded. They checked where the Cavalier was, after seeing the driver swerve and veer out of sight. Now the Cavalier was back on their tail and was on a collision course. Its front light was totally decimated, the front bumper was hanging on by a single shred of bodywork, and the engine was starting to smoke. Barakov drove his car right into the back of the Larda. It shuddered with the impact, the crunching sound of metal on metal screaming through the bodywork. After hitting their heads on the front seats they turned around and aimed though the window again. One of their shots just missed Barakov’s head, just nicking his left ear. This is getting too close for comfort; I’ve got to escape while I still can. The smoking in his car got worse. I'm not going back to the base, Yugorovski's track record at dealing with failures made that thought scuicide. Barakov slowed his car and gave a passive signal of surrender. There wasn’t much else he could do, he couldn't bear the sight of his blood. Slowly, he pulled the smoking car to a stop, and resignedly he got out. Damage report wasn’t looking good. He’d need to give it a few minutes of cool-off before going back in. Suddenly, something in the car ignited, and it disappeared in a ball of flame. It lifted off about a foot off the ground, the force of the explosion ripping the car to shreds. He got disintegrated by the blast. All that was left of him were a few charred bone fragments, and a melted gold ear-ring. Compared to what would’ve happened to him had he returned to Yugorovski, the death that he had was quick and relatively painless. Gustav slammed on the brakes. The tyres scrabbled for traction as they fought to slow the car down. Soon they stopped and jumped out of the car, caution taking second place to intrigue. They got to the car just as the fire burnt itself out. They were appalled by the sight that met them, and by the acrid smell of molten metal and burning rubber. There was a line of oil underneath where the car had been. Gustav smelled it, retched and covered his nose with his hand. Just as I thought, damned motor oil. The commander looked at the remains of what was once his ally, “He was once a good friend, but he had no notion of human kindness. Once corrupted by Yugorovski, he was hooked and nothing was going to let him go. Maybe it’s best that he died this way. He was never going to see the error of his ways.” Gustav turned on his pager. He had received three new messages. One was from Luciano and his brother, both trying to hog the line, one was from Johnny, the British agent and the last was from Spyro himself. First, he sent a message back to Luciano: Just got out of Yugorovski’s hell-hole, along with two new friends. One is commander Eugene La Salle, your old friend from the war. We are taking this baby home back to the hotel, then I’m getting out of here, my suspicions are Yugorovski’s moving his base of operations. Not sure where though. I’ll get our English friend to figure it out for us. Maybe I’ll even give him some of the reward as compo. You know how bad he wants Yugorovski and how bad he wants to be at home, lets give him the chance to kill two birds with one stone. Then he sent another to Johnny: You know what you have to do, Johnny. Track down Yugorovski by any covert or non-covert means necessary. As soon as you find out send one message to me and the other to Luciano, telling us exactly, to the nearest room, where his current base of operations is. What I’m asking is potentially life threatening and could also end up with your wife and kids dead. However, you will be paid for your trouble, in whatever currency you want. What I’m offering you is a way to pay back Yugorovski for the pain he’s caused and a way to get back home. At the moment just find him, the rest is up to us. Finally, one last one to Spyro: Still on the road to recovery, eh, sensei? Hope you get better soon. Almost got our mission blown by Yugorovski’s henchmen. They ambushed us at our hotel and took us to their prison inside an oversized plastic bag. We escaped though, with a Russian spec-ops person called Terrik Breshkhev. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Anyway teach, keep fighting and get better. Fight to survive. Whatever you do, don’t quit on us yet. We’ve still got quite a while to complete the mission, but soon Yugorovski won’t have an organisation to work with. We’re going to give him just enough rope to hang himself with.
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