As Scully and Phillips wait for Greg the Cockney to produce the shotgun shells, they see Kane, Kovac, and their new friends arrive at Andrei's. The party files past the two armed guards at the door and enter the café, disappearing into the shadows near the back of the interior dining area. The guards don't move. Greg returns with 25 shotgun shells- 3 solid slugs, 7 rounds of birdshot, and 15 rounds of OO buck.
The negotiations are finalized. Greg's starting to ask a lot of questions, most of which Scully playfully dodges. The two Americans could move on, but they have a good view of the front of the restaurant and a legitimate reason to be standing in front of Greg's stall, so they hang around until their allies exit Andrei's.
The negotiations team confers for a few minutes and then Griet, Bayer, Kane, and the others head back into the restaurant.
Andrei's seems much darker after having just stood outside at midday.
Griet speaks,
"General, we have decided to accept your job offer, but we have a counteroffer that we would like to make... in private."
Zolnerowich hesitates, then dismisses the guards at the kitchen door, sending them outside.
"These men," Zolnerowich says, indicating his present staff officers,
"I trust completely. They've been with me since I took this command. What you have to say to me, you can say in front of them."
"General, we are willing to take you under the conditions you have suggested, although we feel it is dangerous and likely to end up with us in trouble whatever happens. This decision puts that trouble further down the road though so we are willing to use this opportunity to prepare. If it helps you, so be it.
"If you just want transport we will settle for your offer plus the opportunity to trade with your ORMO for goods that you may be reluctant to pass on. In particular we are looking to trade our Z00-2 for a KPV and mount, I'd like a double but we'd settle for a single as well as ammunition. We have other things we'd like to trade for but if you agree we can burden your quarter master with the details."
"We do have another suggestion for you. It is presumptuous and wild but may be strange enough to work. If you decide to ignore it we will understand entirely. We are working on the assumption that your opposite number will double cross us and suggest that we pull the double cross first. It would involve you very publically declaring that you are travelling on the Queen and will be leaving in however many days you think we can risk leaving it. Before the announcement, get a cordon out so that if the nuke is here and then recalled you might be able to capture it as the saboteurs leave. If that happens we will bring you back here to safety.
If, as I suspect, that fails, I suggest that I send a secret message to the general saying that I suspect you of tricking him in some way and offering to exchange you earlier in a place that we decide. I will insist that he comes to make the exchange. If that works, we can possibly take him and his power base out and leave you to step in to the power vacuum.
"To do that we'd need your best men hidden on board and as much ammunition for our weapons as we can get. Any we don't fire will be returned less a small fee for our services. It is risky but possibly better than appealing to reason with a man willing to nuke a city to get his way.
"Of course, I am merely presenting you with an option. If you wish to stick with your plan we will follow your wishes."
The general's face is an impassive mask. He looks at each of his staff officers in turn, then back to Griet. The silence is almost oppressive. Suddenly, he breaks into a wide grin.
"I have already told you far too much. There's no going back now."
He looks to his staff again. Lagunov shrugs his shoulders, the others give similarly ambiguous, noncommittal gestures. Clearly, they're not as decisive as the their commander.
"Your reputation precedes you. We've already heard about how you helped the 89th cross the river; how you defeated Torun's floating tank and escaped General Bukov's trap at Torun. My staff preached caution, but I feel that I can trust you. I am going to try to kill Chilikov. Turning myself in is a ruse to get close to him. I don't think it will be that easy, though. I command conscripts, not commandos. I need skilled manpower to make this work. You seem more than capable... and willing. So we work together to take down Chilikov. Everything I have I put at your disposal. I will send my logistics officer with you back to your boat. He will assist in repairing your engine. Give him your list of supplies and equipment and we'll do what we can. We will depart as soon as your boat is fixed. We can iron out the plan once we are underway."
With that, the meeting adjourns. The Kommandos file back outside, met now by Scully and Phillips, and they all pile back into the two jeeps, along with the Soviet drivers and Major Suvorin, Zolnerowich's S4. The trip back to the tug is short.
Gryzyech is reluctant to let anyone, especially Russians, enter his precious boiler room. It takes a stern, yet compassionate talking to from Griet to get the salty old mechanic to acquiesce. He sulkily shows Suvorin the damaged component, a cracked piston rod. Suvorin sketches the part and writes down all of its identifying information. Before he leaves the tug, he writes a list of all of the supplies requested by the Kommando.
The first shipment arrives soon after Suvorin departs. Two crates of 82mm mortar rounds, 10 rounds per crate, all HE*. Several more shipments follow.
*20 rounds 82mm HE
300 rounds 12.7mm
1 ZPU-2 twin-barrel KPV 14.5mm HMG/light cannon
550 rounds 14.5mm API/tracer rounds
Wheat flour and dried fish, enough to feed each Kommando and Krolowa crewman three light meals a day for an entire a week
A work crew with a truck mounted crane removes the ZU-23-2 from the Krolowa's poop, replacing it with the lighter ZPU-2. Anders, Tucker, and Craig work with a few of the Russians quayside to improvise a wrap-around gun shield for the twin-barreled light cannon. They have to use steel plate of a less than optimal protective thickness or else the gun's traverse mechanism will be overburdened and it won't be able to pivot quickly or smoothly. Still, the improvised armor protection should be able to stop most rifle-caliber rounds without interfering with the weapon's operation.
Shortly before nightfall, Suvorov arrives in a Ural 6x6 cargo truck. In the bed, wrapped in protective greased tarps, is undamaged twin to the Krolowa's cracked piston rod. In an astounding coincidence, Grudziaz is home to a dormant factory nearly identical to Krakow's in the make and model of its machinery. The rest of the night is spend swapping out the parts. It's hard to get much sleep on board the tug, with profane streams of shouted Polish curses accompanying periodic boats of clanging and banging echoing through the ship's hull from the engine room.
Shortly before midnight, a stranger arrives at the pier. A young man with east Asian features, dressed in worn and faded American woodland BDUs, Red Army canvas satchel bag over his shoulder. In broken Russian, he talks his way past the guards and crosses the gangway to the tug. He introduces himself to the duty officer as Hospital Corpsman Ken Takanori, USMC, and asks for passage on the tug in exchange for rendering medical services as needed. He's brought a few medical supplies with him in the bag.
Dawn breaks cold and clear. General Zolnerowich arrives to check on the progress of the repairs and is delighted to hear that the tug is ready for a trial run. The old tug passes the test with flying colors and, shortly after 10am, departs Grudziaz, new supplies and passengers- Red Army deserter Jelena Tamm, General Zolnerowich, two of his staff officers and four enlisted men (his best fighters, he claims) and Marine Corpsman Ken Takanori- on board.
The tug passes the famed medieval granaries, historic Grudziaz landmark. The towering brick edifices were constructed- part food storage, part fortification- by the Teutonic order during its Prussian crusades. They've certainly seen better days. It looks as though a pack of giant rats have gnawed through the walls, hungry for the grain within.
In reality, the most recent damage was caused by modern heavy artillery. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the historic buildings are beyond repair.
Although she's only making 15kph, after the last leg of the journey on the tug, during which she rarely hit 5kph, it feels like the Krolowa has transformed itself into a cigarette boat.
Shortly before noon, the Krolowa approaches the riverside village of Nowe. Before the settlement even comes into view, those topside see a conspicuous sign erected overlooking the river on the west bank. It's the size and shape of a pre-war billboard, whitewashed background with a plain red flag hanging from a pole jutting above the riverside post. Painted in large, red letters on the board(in Polish),
SLOW DOWN!
Toll Station Ahead.
Prepare to Stop.
Just past the entrance to a small tributary on the west bank, a rickety, ad-hoc pier extends about 15m out into the river. It looks to be constructed largely from scrap, including one large piece that looks suspiciously like an aircraft wing. At the end of the pier floats a pontoon of sorts, a wooden platform supported by empty oil drums. Topping the pontoon is a sandbagged bunker manned by at least two individuals. Tied alongside the pier is a low-slung river tour boat, its hull painted a gaudy pink. Although the paint scheme is different, the vessel itself seems somewhat familiar to Konrad, Griet, Tucker, and Minh. A second sign, not quite as big as the first, but apparently double-sided, stands on the bank near the root of the pier. It can be read using binoculars. In Polish, it says,
STOP!
Toll Station.
WARNING! DO NOT PASS Without Stopping.
General Zolnerowich, currently on the bridge, announces,
"It's not one of ours. It could be Anders' men. He considers this territory to be his turf."
Your Move.
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This message was last edited by the GM at 22:49, Thu 09 July 2015.
