From Russia with Motorbikes

"It is your child and I am keeping it," Sarah had said to him ending the conversation over the phone. Bill put his hand to his mouth as he put down his mobile. He looked awkwardly at his fiance Mia seated opposite at the breakfast table. They were in their apartment in the Stirling Lines army base in Herefordshire.

         "Oh, what the frig have you done now?" said Mia.

         "That was Sarah, the medic I told you about from that extract operation," said Bill. Though a member of Her Majesty's Special Forces he nervously wondered how on earth he was going to get out of this one alive.

         "The one you slept with? You told me that was a one-off and it was over and done with!" said Mia. Bill could see the anger and distress on her face.

         "It is, but she is pregnant,... I'm the father...I'm sorry," Bill said. He studied the emotions on Mia's face: relief; then shock; and then surprisingly laughter. He saw her hands go to her hips as if she were going to tell him off.

         "You're utterly unbelievable, you know that don't you? What are you going to do about it?"

         "I am open to suggestions, you are my priority," said Bill.

         "You have to go see her. You have to arrange support, not that you have any money soldier boy, and I am not paying for your bastards. Good job she's a medic, she probably earns more than you do. You can't simply abandon that child though, it is not the child's fault and you are the father. Does she have another man now?" said Mia.

         Bill was relieved that Mia was taking this so calmly and rationally. He remembered when he had told her about the one-night stand just six months ago and she had gone completely berserk, throwing things at him and even leaving him. Two weeks of groveling later he had gotten her back. The separation had merely confirmed just how much he felt for her.

         That must never happen again, he thought.

         He despised the weakness he had shown that night in Russia while waiting for extraction. His SAS team were all dead, but somehow he and the medic seconded to their team had survived with the wounded spy they had come to collect. The spy had information about the planned Russian invasion of Ukraine. The man was unconscious beside them in their hiding place, doped up on a range of painkillers after extensive torture by the Russians and they had a lot of time to simply sit. The intimacy, the fear, and the loss of comrades had all woven together into a moment of irresistible lust and here they were six months later with Sarah pregnant!

Bill had told his commanding officer what was going on and why he had needed a couple of days off to get his affairs in order. As he approached Sarah's house wearing his favorite biker black leather jacket his hands clenched the motorbike handles harder than normal. His sixth sense had saved his life in battle so many times. But here in the city of Bristol, Gloucestershire, it seemed out of place. He looked around. Hells Angels on motorbikes, at both ends of Sarah's street, fitted his sense of danger, but they chatted among themselves, apparently ignoring him.

         Sarah opened the door when he parked on the street in front of her townhouse. Her blonde hair blew in the light morning breeze. Her tight blue top clung to her breasts and belly, swollen from the pregnancy. She looked good and was glowing. She had clearly made the effort, with makeup and smart clothes. She seemed nervous, and he felt compassion for her, but not love as she stood there. He studied the large townhouse. This would have cost a small fortune. He was not sure that even a doctors' salary would cover this place. Maybe Sarah had inherited money. As Sarah greeted him he saw her look towards the Hells Angels now moving towards them from each end of the street and then heard her curse under her breath. She paused a moment as if gathering her thoughts and then with remarkable prescience of mind, with her eyes fixed on his, she summarised the situation for him.

         "That is my brother over there on one of those bikes, he is a greedy man and is used to getting his way. He is the head of the Hell's Angels here in Bristol. I overheard him say there was a bounty on your head from the Russians... sorry... I did not believe he actually wanted to collect it nor how he knew you were coming... This looks like a trap and the Hells Angels mean to collect, you have to run! Don't worry about me, I am family and they will not harm me."

         Understanding instantly what was going on, his training kicked in and he mounted the bike. He drove straight at the riders driving down the north side of the street. Playing chicken with two Hells Angels was probably not the best idea in the world and they did not back down until the very last second, parting the ways, and he blazed right through the middle of them. He heard the screeching of brakes behind him as the bikes whirled around in pursuit. The other two bikes from the south side now roaring past them in hot pursuit also.

         As he streamed towards the motorway intersection he hit traffic. He wove his way through the cars and lorries and even used the pavement to get past one blockage. The Hells Angels behind him did the same, he noted there were now at least six of them. In the corner of his eye, he could see two more coming at him from a side street, he turned into a deserted playground, did a wheelie, and succeeded in climbing the metal slide there at speed to jump the fence behind it and join with the road on the far side. He only just cleared the meshed metal fence behind the playground. Now he was in a one-way street going the wrong way. He wove past a few cars, the horns screeching at him as he did so. There were screams from the pavement as people looked on, pointing with arms uselessly waving at him.

         Amazingly the Hells Angels kept with him though his jump maneuver had gained him an extra 300 feet. Finally, he saw the signs for the M5, as he sped through red traffic lights dodging cars from the side of him. He heard the thud and crash as some of the Hells Angels did the same but did not make it.

         They must want me badly, he thought to himself, I wonder how high that bounty on my head is?

         The motorway also was crowded around Bristol and he roared down the hard shoulder at speed towards Herefordshire and the North. This was fine until a bridge approached and there was no hard shoulder. He squeezed between two lorries holding the handles hard. He lightly grazed the side metal on the side of one of the lorries but somehow kept his balance. Then he was into the open road as he passed the last Bristol turnoff and the traffic got lighter. He turned the throttle to maximum on his bike and picked up speed reaching 160 miles an hour. But in his mirror, he could still see six bikes on his tail. He sped past a police bike doing 70mph in the middle lane, he saw the light flash blue and the bike move to intercept but as it did so the Hells Angels bikes sped past it, and in the hasty effort to correct his course and avoid a collision the officer lost control crashing into the barrier in the middle. Bill saw him rise and run to the barrier before a car hit his bike. His bike was smashed forwards on the lane and wrecked and the car skidded to a halt. Bill was relieved no one seemed to have been hurt.

         Shortly after a police helicopter appeared in the sky above him and he knew that a police blockade would soon block the way ahead backing up the traffic. Sure enough, the traffic jams ahead indicated that a blockade had been organized. He moved to the hard shoulder and as he approached the bend in the road, driving fast on the hard shoulder, he realized this is where they would set the spike strips as there was no traffic on the part of the motorway he could see past the bend. He slowed to 100 mph and as he turned the bend saw the spikes laid across the road two hundred feet before police cars blockading the motorway. They had left a tiny gap by the barrier on the hard shoulder he leaned the bike into the barrier causing it to slide along the side, its wheels off of the ground. He skidded over the metal spikes past the police and righted his bike into the open road behind. Aside from damage to the paintwork his bike was fine. He screeched to a stop some three hundred feet behind the blockade and then drove his bike back to the blockade.

         As he approached the pursuing Hells Angels hit the spikes lost control of their bikes and crashed into the police blockade. Six bikes in all and all of the men were scraped off the tarmac and arrested including he presumed Sarah's brother. As the police approached him in order to arrest him he went down on his knees and put his hands behind his head, all the while smiling to himself at the barrier maneuver he had just pulled off.

"Well that was quite some time off," said Captain Stuart, Bill's commanding officer. Bill wondered why he was smiling.

         "How on earth did you stop them putting me away for a couple of years for all those traffic violations?" said Bill.

         "Simple I told them you were on a classified mission targeting organized crime in cahoots with an unnamed hostile state. That your mission was to draw the men out while we raided their safe houses and factories."

         "Was that true?"

         "Yes. After you told me what was going on I did some checks and we found out about Sarah's brother and GCHQ told us they had intercepted some conversations between the Hell's Angels in Bristol and hackers known to operate for the Russian state. We had full detail of their intent to kidnap you using Sarah and her baby as the Honey trap to draw you in."

         "Was she in on this?"

         "No, she only found out when it all went down. Her brother was the main guy. The Russian FSB had a bounty of ten million euros on your head and the offer of more complete access to the drug corridors through their territory. The information you brought back was significantly helpful to the Ukrainian resistance. It was a deal too good for the Hells Angels to refuse. So we let your meeting go ahead knowing that some of their fiercest guys would pursue you and while they were away we sent in the Police Armed Response Units complemented by a few SAS in balaclavas. You played your part perfectly and made us look really good. Where did you learn that stunt with the motorway side barrier?"

         "YouTube, and I did some dummy runs at lower speed in a deserted car park. I was dying to find an excuse to try it out."

         "Right, anyway clearly things are a little hot for you and Mia here right now so we thought we'd give you a little holiday. "

         "OK great where are we going?"

         "Mia's quite keen on the idea, as it gives her the opportunity to expand her online business to the USA and she has family there. We are placing you with Delta Force, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Go easy on them."

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