around her from either side.
She considered running … but where could she run to? They were
already close enough to shoot her if they wanted to. She also
considered opening fire, going down in some kind of heroic, John Wayne
last stand, but that was just plain silly. At a hundred yards, she
wouldn’t be able to come close to hitting them with a handgun, while
they were carrying AKMs, assault rifles accurate to four hundred yards
or more. Hanson had never thought much of the old, ultra-macho idea of
death rather than surrender.
“Stoy!”
The command snapped at her from her right, and she spun, surprised.
Damn! How had he gotten so close so quickly? A Russian was standing
less than twenty yards away, his AK aimed at her.
“Stoy!” he barked again, gesturing with the rifle. “Zdavayetees!
Brawste arujyee!”
She wished that she could speak Russian. Still, it was clear what he
wanted. Carefully, making no quick moves, she extended the hand holding
the Beretta and dropped the weapon to the ground. The soldier stepped
cautiously closer. “Rukee v’vayrh!” The rifle snapped up, a savage
gesture, and she raised her hands over her head.
He looked Oriental, not Chinese exactly, but with a Mongolian’s flat
face and puffy, slit eyes. Those eyes widened as he got closer, and
Hanson was uncomfortably aware that he had just realized that his
prisoner was a woman.
He spat something harsh. It didn’t sound like Russian. His eyes were
twinkling and his face was marred by an unpleasant grin as the rest of
the soldiers hurried up.
She stood there uncertainly, arms still raised, as rough hands groped
and pawed and patted, spun her about, then groped again. One grabbed
her left arm, jerked it down, then pulled off her wristwatch and
pocketed it. Another grabbed her SAR radio and jerked it from her
flight suit. She tried to concentrate on the uniforms surrounding her,
instead of the grinning, too-eager faces. Green camouflage … but
with a peculiar, high-peaked, visored cap. They wore shoulder boards
with the letters BB on them in gold.
She knew that the Cyrillic letter that looked like a B was actually a V.
What did VV stand for? She was sure that they weren’t speaking Russian
as they jabbered at one another.
After they had searched her with elaborate thoroughness, someone
produced a length of heavy twine and tied her wrists tightly behind her
back. She was expecting them to take her back to the truck, but the one
who’d first captured her appeared to have a different idea. “Vpeeryad!”
he ordered, and the muzzle of his AK jammed into the small of her back
just below her bound hands.
“I don’t understand you!” she told him. “I am American, understand?
Amer-”
“Skaray!” He prodded her again, this time in the buttocks, and she
stumbled forward, then fell to her knees as the men around her laughed
and hooted. Two of them grabbed her then, one taking each of her arms,
hauling her to her feet and dragging her forward. They were taking her,
she saw with mounting horror, toward that nearby barn she’d noticed
during her descent.
Inside, the light falling through the gaps between the boards of the
walls was filtered through drifting dust, and the air was thick with the
mingled smells of hay and manure. Someone grabbed her arms from behind,
holding her tightly while the rest closed in.
“No!” she yelled, desperate, angrier now than she’d ever been in her
life. “No, you bastards! No!” She tried to kick, but they held her
legs while a grinning Mongol stooped to unlace her boots. Another
reached up and started tugging at the zipper to her flight suit.
Evidently, that proved to be too slow. Knives gleamed in the half light
as three or four of them roughly began cutting every stitch of clothing
from her body. It was slow going, for the material of the survival
garment beneath her flight suit was thick and tough, like a wet suit.
The men chatted back and forth as they worked, sometimes laughing as
though at a hilarious joke.
Then she was on her back in the hay and they were all around her,