Prologue
‘Patience and perseverance get their due reward.’
It all started in a different part of the world. I’ll leave you guessing for now, but all will be made clear. In due course. And in sufficiently very good time.
‘Amongst the good and the bad there is extreme good and extreme bad.’
In an eastern bloc country, a small group of men are taking their guns apart, cleaning them and putting them back together again with an ease that only comes with considerable, in fact extensive practice. There’s a popping noise in the background. Part of the group are firing on a target range in a clearing, hidden deep inside the forest. The men are wearing black, not camouflage gear.
One of the group is giving out orders in quick succession. The men listen and respond with an easy ambience. They now know what they are here for. Until today, they were vague about what mission their leader might have in mind for them. This knowledge spurs them on to become better than the best, an elite force, whose training and discipline matches that and those of anywhere in the world.
They trust their leader Viktor implicitly. He has trained them from being nobodies, with no experience in the military world of things, into being disciplined fighters able to take on and defeat anything they encounter.
They are trained for success in whatever they do. All they presently lack is experience on real-world missions, but they have practised over and over again to meet any situation that might be thrown at them.
Their drills have been as realistic as possible, under fire from live ammunition, responding to ambushes and to securing buildings or scrubland. They have yet to kill, but they are sure that the mission Viktor has described to them will fill that gap in their experience. They have been trained to kill and to do so either silently or in open combat and to do so ruthlessly, and without hesitation.
Their training has matched that of special groups in the military anywhere in the world, but theirs is different, they have a special mission with altogether no comparison anywhere elsewhere. Only Viktor could have come up with and master-minded such a plan.
And they themselves are to a man ready to carry out this mission. It will demand their all from each of them, each must play his part, and each must look after the others in the team. Only by all of them acting together can such a plan come to fruition.
And they will no longer be anonymous, the world, the very entire world will know of what they are setting out to achieve. The plan is a stroke of brilliance, to each of them, a plan that cannot possibly fail or even be allowed to come close to failure.
Until today, their confidence had not been complete, just as with a jigsaw puzzle with parts not yet in place, they had not seen the entire picture. But Viktor had detailed his plan and now all of the parts, all of the pieces fitted together.
Today they acted as if they had known of the plan, their mission from the beginning, from day one of their training. Things would be set in motion very shortly. This renewed their energy, renewed their enthusiasm and renewed their spirits. It was all now falling into place.
And leading to, as to how it all ends ... ? Viktor assured them that they would, as in would, succeed ...
