<quote Taras Vladimirovich Shevchenko>

"We have RPG and PKM, do not have that much rifle or machinegun ammunition. We have several anti-armour rockets and extra 30 millimeter ammunition; not much need to use! I start with 2 BTR-70M, 2 BMP-2. I lose many men, BMP and BTR last year, salvage ammunition. Have mounted salvaged Dushka on BMP (is removed now). Other BTR up there not work except for gun. Sure, could repair engine, probably will some time, but no need right now. Spare rifles we sell to community."</Yellow>

They walked over to the waiting VIPs who were talking to Clarke, Lee, Champlain, Mac and Andy.

The flame of war is extinguishing fast, my friend. Is time to start working together for ourshelves. Many things we lost. We cannot afford to lose anything else.

Taras stood up and patting the back of the kazakh sargent concluded:

Let's go see the Mayor and the people. And, by the way, I want you to keep the old ashtray as a reminder of an old friendship.

<quote Taras Vladimirovich Shevchenko>

Clarke had sensed it would be a considerable faux pas to up and leaeve the Mayor right after initial introductions to evesdrop on Taras' semi-private conversation. She quickly scooted back when she realised her presence was superfluous, and that it might be good to keep from Bulat that she knew Russian. Fortunately, it seems no feathers were ruffled by her brief absence.

After a few minutes the Mayor looked at her watch and commented, "we are waiting for one of our leading citizens. He lives down in the North Shore, and he alerted us about the problem in the Park. Say, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you now?"

She smiled as if to say she had a sneaking suspicion they did.

</quote>Clarke was well aware this could be delicate.  "I do.  I would prefer to lay things out once, rather than repeat myself several times. We had planned to cover this for you at the meeting, since we knew you had questions.  Fair enough?<quote>

Clarke was well aware this could be delicate.  "I do.  I would prefer to lay things out once, rather than repeat myself several times. We had planned to cover this for you at the meeting, since we knew you had questions.  Fair enough?

The Mayor cocked her head. "It's something of great and immediate concern to us."

"If you have any information to share you can go into details later, but please, enlighten me just a little!"

"We will freely share what little information on the Stickmen we possess. Of course we will help deal with them whichever way we can."

The source of the whistle grew louder.

</quote>Clarke looked down the railroad tracks for a moment, gathering herself."Moments like thise are difficult.  There's what you should say as a diplomat, and what you feel as a person.  A recce was carried out near Stickman territory.  I arrived yesterday and I didn't learn all the details myself until this morning.  Clarke looked at the Mayor.  "That's all I can say for now."

She cocked her head.  "What can you tell us about the Stickmen?  I'd be eager for anything you can tell me.

Clarke looked down the railroad tracks for a moment, gathering herself."Moments like thise are difficult.  There's what you should say as a diplomat, and what you feel as a person.  A recce was carried out near Stickman territory.  I arrived yesterday and I didn't learn all the details myself until this morning.  Clarke looked at the Mayor.  "That's all I can say for now."

She looked grateful for at least that little bit, and Clarke could tell she'd won some points.

"Thank you for so much! It's good to hear someone is finally dealing with them. We would but we just don't have the manpower, and there are legal questions as to how far we can go."



"Chief Selkirk can give you the specifics later, but some of our people went into the Park without permission, and the Stickmen not only drove them off but tracked them down and then burned the town in retribution. That's why we relocated here and hired Mr. Shailin. We think there's perhaps over a hundred of them, and they've formed a kind of anti-technological subculture and millenarial cult."

Within a few minutes they could hear the chugging of, indeed, what sounded to be a train. It got loud and then began to echo, obviously entering the rail tunnel that led southward, bored through the flank of Black Mountain.

There was the squealing of brakes, and then the train hove into view.

Kelsey, Mac and Lee immediately recognised it as the steam engine known as the "Royal Hudson", one of tow such engines that ran luxury excursions between North Vancouver and Squamish/Whistler before the war. It was immaculately restored, towing several cars. Between the engine and caboose was a tender, boxcar, and "gun car" with a Grizzly AVGP hull permanently mounted on a flatcar and built up with sandbags, wood and concrete.

White smoke billowing out of the stack, the train shuddered to a halt behind the F-150 rail-runner, hissing steam. Men (some in surplus fatigues) hopped down and started checking the train, while the engineer climbed down and headed towards them. He was an older man in his 60's, short and solidly built, but instead of wearing stereotypical engineer bib coveralls and a cap he wore a set of dark coveralls, white safety helmet and orange reflective vest.



Bulat a family man! Well, that is certainly big news! Congratulations!

Taras gave his friend a big bear hug. The ex-soviet troops in the background appeared to be aware of this and after a couple rounds of vodka the unmistakable notes of the accordeon and plinking of the strings of a balalaika came to their ears. The melody, eventhough sang in Russian words, appeared too familiar for everybody.

Ah, those were the days...of course!

Shevchenko tried to find the face of Clarke in the crowd ready to move back to the grounds of the University. The job in the North Shore was done.

Looking at Taras, Kelsey thought that he was thinking very wishfully by scanning the radio channels. After all, they were in a narrow valley with a high peninsula to the west and south, and a mountain to the east. Plus, there just wasn't a lot of time before departure. The crew watched him curiously, while smoking.

A portly middle-aged man, the vehicle's driver/electronics specailist (Mládshiy Serdzhánt Stepan Romanovich Kucherenko, a fellow Ukrainian) came over to help or at least observe.

Due to some fluke of atmosphere or geography, by sheer chance he picked up a signal after a few minutes. It was a voice repeating a string of numbers in Russian, some kind of coded broadcast. The signal strength wasn't strong and there was considerable interference. Without RDF there would be no chance of telling where it came from; if it was from the KGB's "secret" 500KW transmitters east of the Urals RDF would be jammed anyways.

http://home.freeuk.com/spook007/KGBrussmale2.mp3

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to monitor the transmission.

As the team made it's way over to the wharf, Kelsey heard someone call her name.

"Kelsey? Hey! It's good to see you!"

It was Dave Urry, formerly a sergeant in 2/RSR's supply unit. Not her unit, but they'd crossed paths. There wasn't a lot of time but Dave said he'd taken command of 2nd Platoon, B Coy when the unit fell apart up in Whitehorse. He and some of his boys made it to Lilooet and met up with MacArthur, becoming his security team.

"I see you're takin' off... look me up next time you get to the North Shore, eh?"

Poor Taras didn't have an opportunity. The rush to go back to UBC prevented him from scanning anything beyond the 12 Mhz. Too much talking and socializing. Even worst, the unsuspected number station popped up exactly where it belong, in the corner of the band. The hypnotic effect of the repetition of numbers caught on him. Strange, most of the emissions of number stations to be heard in North America were mostly in Spanish, usually a young lady, a 3/2 digit set was used instead of the more frequent 5 digit. Another one time pad nightmare without a chance to be resolved. There was a possibility that either the First Directorate of the KGB was still operating somewhere. Or even the GRU. Maybe Cuba, the origin of most spanish transmissions, was wiped out...

Shevchenko retrieved his radio set while hearing Clarke's news.

Oh, great! We may take advantage of our glorious combat against the fascist forces of the forest!

The intended three times wink resembled somehow the secret transmission of the number station.

...and the casualties inflicted upon their troops...

This time the face of the ukrainian turned more serious:

I think their intel regarding the stickmen is faulty. Our patrol was conducted under strict surprise but we confronted lots of them up on the bridge and in the woods and even the militia boat was attacked. Considering that there is no living quarters any place nearby we may well be facing only one third or so of their real strength. They need to rotate people for bridge watch and they don't seem to rely in comms out of line of sight. Their ambush was sophisticated too. I wouldn't be too confident. Their weakest point is going to be their leadership. If we can identify, persecute and prosecute their boss or bosses the rest of the task may be more easy to do. If the religion is their opium we may have to get their drug dealers first!

The party was almost ready to leave,

There is a lot of intelligence work to do. It will take time and effort. Hopefully the RCMP and militia will move forward East with the census program to the point where we can start getting a scope of the situation in the downtown area.