In the Depths
Heinlen and his men hang back about a half mile. Advance teams of “Vaeringjar” – VARYAG “Death Squad” and “Falcon” Teams – are stealthily moving through the forests on the perimeter of the old USSR Pechene USSR Air Base Montenegro. The base itself is a five-mile square expanse of forested wilderness inside the Krepopanvia municipal footprint.
When a Tel Aviv consortium purchased the USSR Pechene Base from the Russian bureaucracy that was liquidating Soviet assets wholesale back in the 1990’s, people in Montenegro had no idea that a sprawling, multi building Synagogue was going to be constructed there. Once it became known that a Simeon Khazar headquarters was the final gameplan, municipal government Planning Board personnel were scratching their heads, asking: Why?
Simeon Khazars had no real presence in Montenegro. There were a few persons of the Hebrew persuasion in the Montenegrin capitol city, Podgorica – mostly businessmen and securities traders working in major banks – but Simeon Khazars were a mystery. They later came in by the hundreds – and settled in and around their Synagogue in Krepopavnia. None – as far as the Montenegro Internal Tax Department Officials were aware – were “employed” in traditional professions or vocations. They owned no businesses. They often drew on municipal and State welfare subsidies for disabled citizens and income tax abatement programs originally designed to assist Orthodox priests – blatant tax fraud in the Khazar context.
Today, Simeon Khazars generally keep to themselves and don’t mix in Montenegro culture or society whatsoever. Their world is entirely self-contained. It revolves around their Synagogue in Krepopavnia. They speak their own dialect of a Hebrew-infused Serbian polyglot – a kind of Yiddish with a Serbian instead of Germanic core. The Simeon Kahazar dress code sets them apart and broadcasts their persona the minute they appear anywhere. Their distinctive side-head braids, their below-the-knee black coats, white shirts and large-brimmed black hats – and last but not least – their long, untrimmed beards. Khazars claim the legal right to educate their own children based upon “cultural imperatives” and a “history of persecution” under United Nations Charter Guidelines. They insist it is part of their “Freedom of Religion”.
All this adds up to a secretive, self-absorbed and isolated society that eschews integration at every step. Simeon Khazars don’t engage with or want to live near Montenegrins. They want a Montenegro Passport and citizenship – but that’s it. They are their own Race. They are their own world. Montenegro is just an address to get their mail at.
The VARYAG advance teams return with their report: stanchion cameras and microphones are strategically placed throughout the forest “buffer” comprising the perimeter of the Synagogue facility that sits on high in the center of the old Soviet installation. The tech boys set out to hack and strangle the surveillance that permeates the forest buffer. They move quick; once surveillance goes down, the clock on how long any children inside probable torture pens will live winds down at speed.
Finally, Heinlen gives the signal: VARYAG FORWARD.
The Hetman’s Death Squad Team make tracks for a corrugated steel square structure where the crooked Bordo cops Andrashko and Buskovic “dropped’ the twelve kids off. Once inside they see a huge steel blast door, bigger than a bank vault, hanging on gigantic hinges and displaying what is obviously a blinking lock and keypad for numerical code entry. There doesn’t appear to be any retina or fingerprint readers. It’s a numbers code – that’s it. The door is simply too enormous to blow up with explosives. Heinlen knows they’ll need brain power – not CENTEX power – to open this baby.
The techies attach their equipment and start downloading “ghost” images of recent sequences. They know that the kids were delivered here within the last 24 hours – and people on the inside recently opened the door to take them inside. By analyzing the remnants of the numerical sequences that have been run through the software and hard chip used inside the lock mechanism, they can perform a “creep” – sift through how many numbers triggered sequences of lock functions and back-engineer a jury-rigged, field patch that can trick the thing open.
The minutes pass. It’s an agonizing wait. Surveillance is down at three Pechene USSR Base access locations. Whomever is watching will know something’s up. They’ll send security from outside and inside. VARYAG Vaeringjar Death Teams and Falcon Teams at three strike locations will each be pinned between two pincers of armed goons.
Their Chief Tech, Milkovo Abazovic, a computer genius from Berlin Polytechnic Institute, intensely hunches over this door code pad and is working his laptop furiously. Finally, there’s an audible “click”. The humongous Blast Door pops open about three inches on its own. Milkovo Abazovic grins and immediately sends his successful hack code to his “Techie” brethren on the VARYAG teams at the other two base entry portals. They, too, will be facing blast doors with similar lock technology. If they follow his reverse-engineered template, they’ll get access within minutes.
It’s show time.
Heinlen leads from the front. They all have condensed, flash card outlines of the USSR Pechene Base blueprints and hustle forward. It’s a challenging combat environment – this kind of urban warfare is labor intensive and exhausting. There’s a skein of staircases heading down to lower levels. Right-angles and corners are everywhere. It’s dangerous. The gameplan is to meet the other two entry teams at a central location on the second level; unfortunately, the place is in a degraded condition and lighting is poor. Once the USSR abandoned the Pechene Base in the mid-1990’s, it was allowed to crumble-in on itself. Water leakage and freezing temperatures has ravished the concrete. Internal steel rebar is now exposed and rusting, compromising the structural integrity of the entire foundation. Electrical conduit hangs listlessly off roof joists, some blackened by soot from short-circuiting and fire. Bare hanging light bulbs flicker and spark before their eyes. But the sickening reality about the maize of filthy tunnels they’re scurrying through is the smell – a weird funk of rotten meat, sour vegetables and backed-up sewage that wafts all around them, clinging to their uniforms and choking their windpipes. Heinlen knows – if the air quality gets any less hospitable, they’re going to have to don respirator masks. He delays giving the order but finally does. Everybody masks up. It helps – but just barely. The deeper into the bowels of these damp, gloomy entrails they penetrate, the stronger the offending stench grows.
Heinlen hears over the static-laden Comms that all units have now entered the structure and are moving towards the convergence point. His Volchya Staya Team is a few hundred feet in, on the second level, making good progress. L’Enfant and Xen Chen are to his left and right – Dirk Fremd is at his back, in their own cluster at the “point” of the Vaeringjar hunters. They can only see about 60 or 75 feet ahead of them in the dark, murky recess of the cast concrete labyrinth. Heinlen orders night-vision spotters on each side of their column to “look sharp”.
The Hetman sees it before the spotters – his eyes are more finely tuned from all the vision-enhancing drugs he’s ingested in his past. Suddenly, tall, dark figures – hooded and robed – move slowly move in from a mechanical service corridor that bisects their main passageway. Vampyres. The figures number four on each side and their robes shift in unison to reveal that each Suckhead is swinging a menacing Egyptian blade of the First Kingdom, BC called a Khopesh. A Khopesh is forward-curving sword axe combination, usually made from hardened bronze, that the Egyptian Pharoah’s Palace Guard wielded with devastating effect in battle. “Khopesh” is Old Kingdom Egyptian meaning an animal’s foreleg – because the weapon is bent in a crook.
Heinlen’s comms erupt into loud static – all VARYAG Death Squad and Falcon Teams are being attacked by surprise groups of Vampyres “with weird knives”. But as much as he’s spoiling for a knife fight – Mano-a-Mano – with these Suckheads, time is of the essence.
“SATURATE ‘EM WITH YOUR AK47s – FILL THEM WITH SODIUM-CHIPPED SILVER NITRATE ROUNDS – SMOKE ‘EM FROM THE INSIDE OUT AND THEN MOVE IN WITH YOUR AXES. BUTCHER ‘EM WHOLESALE!! STACK THEIR HEADS SO WE CAN FIRE THEM UP LATER. AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT! WE’VE GOT TO FIND THE KIDS!! STAY ON MISSION!!!”
VARYAG AK47s ring out in a deafening explosion of shots. Despite being hit, the Vampyres shuffle forward and continue writhing in their weird snake-dance maneuver, taunting the VARYAG hunters to engage them in hand-to-hand combat. But soon the VARYAG’S special Sodium and Silver element-impregnated munitions start to smoke and burn inside the fiend’s wounds. As more and more holes perforate their bodies, Sodium incendiary flames vent outward like celestial sunspots erupting in outer space. Their leathery, fang-gaped faces grimace in pain and the Vampyres waiver and stagger. Heinlen and his VARYAG Death Team charge in, swinging their handaxes in whirling arcs of merciless impacts, cleaving jaws, hacking arms off Vampyre elbows and blinding them with full-on whacks between their eyes. Heads are separated from carcasses with lightning speed and heaped into burlap bags to be collected later for bonfires outside. Heinlen pushes his men forward. Such rapid maceration of this Vampyre troupe doesn’t help the reek inside the tunnel, which now has the atmosphere of a running cesspit – but they can’t stop now.
“LET’S GO!!! GO!!! GO!!!
Heinlen hears his men chant behind him as the march forward;
“TIL VALHALL!!! TIL VALHALL!!! TIL VALHALL!!! TIL VALHALL!!!”
He smiles to himself. Their Slavic Souls are soaring, streaking across the Heavens in imaginary chariots with Odin and Thor. His young VARYAG are steeped in ancient lore and legend – and they’re reveling their newfound Nordic and Slavic Native Spirituality. “To Valhalla!” – the traditional Varangian Rus Battle Chant from centuries ago. How gloriously, deliciously appropriate!!
Two of his best VARYAG killers run out at full tilt to “short scope” the murky tunnel ahead of them.
Col. Vadim Spajic is a 28-year-old Serbian Special Forces fighter with a Kolovrat tattoo on his left forearm and “SLAVA RODNYA” inked on his right. His beautiful blonde wife died in childbirth; he’s raising his eight-year-old daughter alone. This raid is personal for him. Sgt. Jakov Durmitosz is a seasoned veteran; he’s a hero from the Russian Caucasus and has the scar across his face to prove it. He, too, has young granddaughters. Both men fight for their Folk. They sprint forward; eyes peeled for movement, trigger fingers steady. They are resolute.
Guns ring out – staccato assault weapons file. Heinlen hears Durmitosz’ voice over the Comms.
“SOLDIERS!! BLACK UNIFORMS, NO TAGS – BLACK FACES. MERCENARIES. THEY’RE USING AK’S. STAY BACK – FLASH-BANG TIME!!”
The flash-bang grenades are deafening inside the close confines of the old cement tunnels. That’s the idea. Durmitosz and Spajic spray the smoke-filled cavern with bullets – and Heinlen is right behind them. Sporadic fire comes back and then dies out. Whoever was left has backed off into whatever sewer they came out of. Sappers demolish the entryways the surprise mercenaries came out of with pre-prepared CENETX charges to make sure Heinlen’s rear is protected.
They dash another few hundred feet and hear voices – welcome voices.
“TIL VALHALL!!! TIL VALHALL!!! TIL VALHALL!!!”
Their VARYAG comrades have found them! Everybody enjoys a raucous, back-slapping rendezvous inside the bowels of this filthy mineshaft and then presses on together. Heinlen and L’Enfant take “Point”. By the looks of the Pechene USSR Base blueprints, there’s storerooms and work areas ahead. Heinlen’s heart is heavy; the VARYAG arrival hasn’t exactly been quiet – whoever is working behind the scenes here knows there’s trouble on its way. They’re going to react with full force. L’Enfant catches his Capitaine’s downcast visage and gives him a wink.
“WE’RE CLOSE. I CAN FEEL IT, MON CAPITAINE! PAS DE SOUCI – NO WORRIES!”
They finally get to massive steel doors that block entry to the storerooms and mechanical work areas. Heinlen gives the order to blow it. CENTEX does the trick. They’re greeted with rifle fire – but it’s not organized infantry firearms discharge, it’s a “spray and pray” random spread, obviously being choked-off by recruits or novices. Col Spajic comes forward with a .50 Caliber “Sovroyka” repeating rifle – a monster – and takes aim at the area where incoming fire seems to be originating. The huge bullets blow clean through a cinderblock outcropping that obscures the shooters – and actually fragments the cement block itself, disintegrating it in seconds. Soon, VARYAG AK47 fire is passing through its remnants scoring hits on the pathetic defenders trying to take refuge behind. An eerie silence descends on the large open space.
Heinlen looks around. Dirk Fremd points to a steel door partially obscured by piles of garbage and refuse. A work room. They cautiously muster outside it, evaluating the locking mechanism at its center. It’s old – a Soviet design that was never upgraded. Mechanical numeric tumblers like an archaic bank vault lock. VARYAG Chief Tech, Milkovo Abazovic once again proves his weight in gold. Locked doors are no mystery to this guy. He opens his “Kit” – a satchel he carries on his back like a small parachute sack – and extracts a small flat screen connected to a power source. There’s a bright yellow radiation warning label on it. Abazovic places the smallish tablet flat against the left side of the lock tumbler and starts turning the dial. It’s a portable X-Ray machine. An old school solution to a steel encased “look-see” problem.
Within three minutes, Heinlein hears an audible “snick”. Abazovic nods his head and backs away quickly. He knows more firepower can be lurking behind that portal – and he’s a “Techie”, not front-line grunt.
They take their positions by the massive handles welded to the door face – and slowly pull. The old iron groans and even lets out a squeal in protest as they exert increasing force. Although the large room they’re in smells like a circus camped in it for a week – what escapes as the door cracks open is a briny, coppery stench, mixed with fecal matter, urine and charred flesh. Then there’s the heat – intense searing heat. All is subsumed by a rhythmic thundering of a blast furnace or smelting oven being fed by an oversized gas main.
Per L’Enfant looks directly at Heinlen and speaks first.
“Je suis desole’, Mon Capitaine…..I am sorry.”
Once they open the door completely, they face what they feared most.
They found the children.
*NO PART OF THIS WORK PRODUCT IS AI GENERATED*
Copyright, 2026 – Jon Croft
www.bogironfoundry.com
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
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