Bland white walls surrounded them with the solid ceiling with strip lights that hung by small chains. Nothing hung on the walls, no windows built. The horrid, light blue carpet and a hundred black chairs which sat empty up the ramp towards the back of the auditorium room pour out in front of Vince as he sat on the table. A sterilised area where information for certain ears should not get out. Orders that were given in here stay in here, no notes taken, remember it. The projector at the back of the room was off, and only the first row of lights at the front of the room were all that were on, they were all that was necessary for Vince to see the five men sat in front of him.

‘That’s it then, that’s all? Nothing else, just a grid,’ Adam said as he uncrossed his legs and leaned back brushing his long hair back behind his ears with one hand while raising his eyebrows as he looks at his notepad.

‘Yep, they want us in Abakan Thursday now, probably because of the weather. They would rather us get there than not at all,’ Vince said as he sips his coffee, twisting the cup on the desk while he sits.

‘That was quick,’ Freddie adds quietly while looking at the sheets in his hands, studying with tight eyes. The marksman of the team and the only twenty six year old trooper to ever join the sniper wing of the regiment.

‘Shall we get this done then so I can go home for once,’ Danny said placing his cup on the floor and folding his map into a more manageable size. A man who would be regarded as a lunatic in life outside of the military. Tattoos fell down his arms of historic battle clashes. His skin faded by age and countless hours of unfiltered sunlight in countries where governments had collapsed, and law and order had failed. He looked like he belonged in such places with the crows feet in the corners of his eyes from years of squinting down scopes. The world to him was an inconvenience, everything was in the way and worthy of complaint, but he did absolutely everything without fuss. He and Vince had been close since the extraction from a significant strike in the Tora Bora caves, when one their patrol drowned in a river as they were swept away during a compromise that could be seen from the Russian space station, so fierce it was. The only way out was the river, and the only speed they could gather which wouldn’t kill them with exhaustion was the current. On that Baltic February night the prisoners they went for and won became the anchor of a burden that prevented the speed of a survivable extraction, and Vince watched Danny stay on the bank of the river with the prisoners while they floated downstream with all kinds of calibers snatching into the water from the hordes of fighters in pursuit. Vince watched him draw his pistol, and under a hail of gunfire that just could not hit him, he crawled on his stomach to each of the eight prisoners that lie face down in the dirt, and he shot all eight one after another, then he rolled into the river with the rest of them to follow. That was his decision.

‘So is it an exercise or what?’ Maths said. A Sharpe and experienced trooper but still young. He came to the team through recommendation, and there was no other Vince would trust more with a map.

‘Allegedly, It’s alpine warfare orientated, and there is no escape from it for us being mountain troop, unfortunately, as the other squadrons are out. I know you’re still scrubbing the weapons, so apologies for the fastball, but it’s luck of the draw,’ Vince said, leafing through some maps he held the same as the others.

‘I’ve never heard you say that. Makes me feel so warm and positive.’ Maths said

‘What?’ Vince said

‘Apologies,’ Maths said with a smile toward him

‘Whats going on with the maps then, what did you make of the grid?’ Vince said, Maths would have been studying the ground of the area as soon as the warning order came through last night.

‘Geocell has never heard of the place. No one has surveyed the area. That grid they gave you, it’s bullshit mate…there is nothing there,’ Maths said. Vince nodded as he looked through the thin intelligence papers in his hand. The others held printouts and looked through, they all seemed never to look probably because they couldn’t stand Vince’s phone call to summon them.

‘Well, that’s very exciting,’ Vince said, he knew he would find nothing, but he had to keep that to himself.

‘She’s the one who found her then?’ Danny said looking at the article of a woman in his hand, she was smiling and young, but the photo was black and white. Sometime in the seventies perhaps, he could tell by her thick, bowl cut bob. Next to it was a grainy photo of a crashed helicopter half sunken in a river. On the bank was what looked like a crucifix on the tree line like someone had built a grave for the helicopter. Under the crucifix stood a figure with its arms in the air, barely able to be made out in a sea of surrounding forest that filled the photo. He looks again at the smiling woman, Dr. Zoya Hendrix written beneath, everything else was in Russian.

‘She doesn’t look like that anymore, but yes, she found her. She had a bit of rough one by the looks of it but seems pretty convinced that it is necessary to visit this spinster out in the woods,’ Vince said, thinking of that face looking back at him in the office. They all sat looking through the target packs. There was a picture of an old woman, so old and so out of focus that it was ultimately useless. But they could make out the basics, the figure of a woman and an axe in her hand emerging from through the face of a forest. But the age of it still had an effect of mystery, like a mythological figure caught once.

‘Its pretty far out for an exercise, has anyone else been to her? Any patrol reports?’ Freddie said.

‘Spetsnaz GRU, Polish GROM, French, SEALS too I think,’ Vince said

‘And there are no orders, no brief, no idea…very shady.’

‘I think they like to keep it under wraps, don’t need publicity, don’t seek it kind of bunch,’ Vince said. The last Christian on earth, he thought, how on earth did they know such a thing. Did they go out and count? Quite a statement to say in this day and age. He couldn’t remember the last primate he encountered who spoke like that. He looked down at the page, at the old woman and decided not to tell them because he wasn’t buying it himself.

‘Never heard of it,’ Danny said, he couldn’t care less as he was too infuriated at once again having his leave dissolved into another exercise that he could do without.

‘What do you reckon Devon?’ Vince said. Devon sat on the end and took a long breath and put the papers down next to him on the empty chair. He took a sip of his coffee and shrugged his shoulders. He was the newest member of the team, but joined through distinction elsewhere. It was both a privilege and curse to work in the team, or, as many of them would say, with Vince.

‘Well, I’ve got the TACSAT, and we’ll be on com scheds obviously to save battery. EPOK times don’t worry about as we will be the only team on the ground. We’ll stick to first light checks. You been given any frequencies?’ Devon said

‘You’d be the first to know, mate,’ Vince said as he reclined back and tossed the papers to one side. He didn’t need to read them anymore, none of them did. They were to get them to the airport with some imagination and to hold them curious.

‘Anything you wanna add?’ Vince prompted Adam who was sat vacantly looking at the floor with the pack in his hand. Vince could tell that he was hungover with his bloodshot eyes and his hair still wet from the blasting of a cold shower he scrambled into when Vince called him for for the third time.

‘Erm..,’ He rolled his eyes and buried his head in his hands and rubbed his stubble, ‘Not sure how reliable the casevac platforms are over there so tape your feet up, plenty of mossy rep, decent boots, not them shit things that Freddie wears,’ Adam said and took sip from his coffee, ‘Don’t get too close to her, if she has been as isolated for fifty odd years as they say, our flu or common cold would probably kill her,’

They thought about that for a moment and drank coffee with the sheets of paper rustling as they thumbed through them.

‘Is it voluntary?’ Danny said

‘No,’ Vince said, they all looked up for the first time.

‘Are you sure? because we normally turn these kinds of invitations down,’ Danny said dropping papers into his lap and crossing his arms.

‘I’m sure, and I’m sorry about the late notice gents. Counter-revolutionary wing caught wind of this a while back. Guys were just getting lifted and dropped into this. It is a survival thing by all accounts, which means there is no threat. But we’re hardly allies with the Russians, so this is an opportunity to have a little look at them. The old woman has survived there for sometime, and they seem to think that it’s somewhat important to know how,’

‘Are we packing then?’ Danny said, the coffee cup balanced on his knee. Vince stopped in thought for a few seconds and looked around at the ceiling. He thought about Sierra Leone, and that team of them who said nothing to him. How quickly they moved through the jungle, their scars and ferocity. And the axes they all carried.

‘Yes, bring the weapons. Freddie, bring your rifle. The rest of you, Danny’s got a roll of maps in the car, check out what you can,’ He paused in thought and pondered,

‘I think its been going on a while, we’re not the first, and I imagine details will emerge when we get there. With regards to return dates, I just don’t know. But it won’t be long. Six in the morning Thursday on the square, Roger?’

The team nodded and climbed out of their warm, post operation comforts that they had been planning to get into for a few weeks.

‘Roger.’ Freddie said.

The team picked up their cups, and slid the paperwork under their armpits or into their pockets and drifted to the door. Vince stayed on the desk watching them depart. They’ll take it, he thought. He had seen them in circumstances that would be almost impossible to replicate. How they shot. How they moved at night and how fast they could get to each other. There were no others he would choose to take with him. But if he had a choice he would go alone because the scars on that woman and that major were open once, and god only knows how they survived. He watched Danny close the door behind him and he sat alone. Sierra Leone slid its way back Into his waking dreams again, and he thought of that team. Those five who he went with on that night. The ones who made him go into the jungle, without a rifle, and only with an axe. And they filmed everything, knowing this day would come and he would have to go. But they knew if they gave Vince even a scent of who they were, what they were up too, he would have to be made one of them. He stood up from the desk and scooped up his papers, glancing at the small photo of the old woman, barely recognisable. He rolled up the paper and stuffed it into the back of his jean pocket, drained the rest of his cold coffee and dropped the cup into the bin by the desk. Go home, he thought as he reached up to the row of light switches. He looked around at the room and thought about pushing the key into the front door of the house and turning it. He detested the thought of going back there everyday, into that cold home alone that was half packed up and ready to be stacked onto the back of truck. But there was one room he couldn’t touch. For all his strength, he could not dismantle the small bed or put the clothes into a box, or pull down the curtain or see the box of toys that still laid on the floor as he left them. He thought of the others on their way home to warmth and love and he envied it to the point of furious jealousy. The light went off as he eased the switch down as if he was hesitant, and then the was nothing but pitch black as the lights blinked off. He stood there and felt it and tried to look around and see. A small orange light at the back of a room, no bigger than a LED was all there was. He listened to the darkness. Then he felt around for the door handle and found it, and then let go and stepped away from the door until he felt a chair in front of him, and he sat in the darkness, alone.

Next Chapter: THE OUTER CORDON