Wheat field near Moscow¶
The wheat field near Moscow is a rain-soaked field off a dark highway between Moscow and Oryol Oblast, where Dick "The Biz" Baxter hides the wounded Russian president after a convoy ambush, kills a pursuer, and is blinded in one eye.
| Type | Location (field) |
| Aliases | the wheat field |
| Region | Countryside outside Moscow, on the road toward Oryol Oblast |
| First appearance | Radford Horrors 03 |
Description¶
The ambush takes place on a dark, rainy highway where feral dogs roam and shabby apartment buildings line one side; the wheat field lies beyond. The Biz kills the car lights and swerves into the field, following the field's crushed trail in the rain (Radford Horrors 03).
History of events there¶
The ambush and escape¶
At about 3 to 3:30 a.m., the president meets the Biz in the Hotel Metropol lobby and tells him there has been "an unusual aircraft crash in Oryol Oblast" and that he wants the Biz to look at it (see Hotel Metropol and Boris Yeltsin). The convoy is an armored limo with two cars ahead and one behind; the Biz rides in the squat rear car between two guards (Radford Horrors 03).
Past Moscow, a 1960s Russian car rams the president's limo and explodes. The Biz (Read a Bad Situation, 10) hears Chechen and Russian voices, multiple cars of gunmen and an elaborate ambush. He crawls to the limo, finds the president unconscious beneath a guard, and with the surviving guard's help drags him to the rear car. With a Luck point burned, he reverses about half a kilometer under fire, the windshield shattering. A security radio picks up an unknown channel, and he calls "Mayday, Mayday, is anyone here?" in Russian. When a heavy Soviet car with four or five men gains on him, he kills the lights and swerves into the field, burning more Luck on fancy stunt driving to lose the pursuers (Radford Horrors 03).
In the field¶
- The car's trunk opens with the dead guard's quick-release key. Inside the Biz finds the president's medical cooler on dry ice (blood bags, biologics and anti-nerve-agent drugs), a grenade launcher, grenades, automatic weapons and a first aid kit.
- He gives first aid: dry ice wrapped in his jacket on the president's head (uneven pupils, a severe concussion) and a shot of injectable ibuprofen.
- A man jogs toward the car along the crushed trail. The Biz props the dead guard by the driver's door, fireman-carries the president 50 feet into the wheat, and hides. He reads the pursuer as wearing mismatched, outdated paramilitary gear and is about 90 percent sure the man is not Russian security.
- The Biz circles with the guard's knife in his teeth, burning another Luck on his Kick Some Ass roll. He stabs the man between body armor and helmet, choosing "inflict terrible harm": a cut artery and severed gun-arm tendons. The man gouges the Biz's eye, leaving him permanently blind in that eye (1 harm). The Biz wrestles the gun away and the man faints from blood loss and collapses.
- A Russian helicopter with a spotlight lands. The Biz drops his guns, leads the crew to the president, and both are flown off. He has spent three Luck and has three left before he is Doomed.
Aftermath¶
In the next episode the Biz wakes in a locked hospital room with an armed guard, and is summoned at dawn to see Yeltsin, who is sutured at the head and torso and praises his "impressive stunt driving" (Radford Horrors 04). Yeltsin says intelligence thinks the attack was "opportunistic and fairly half-assed" (Radford Horrors 04). Who sent the ambushers is never established; see Convoy ambushers.
Trivia¶
- Ezra (as the Biz), over the radio before killing the lights: "I'm going into a wheat field. You're gonna have to find me." (Radford Horrors 03)
- The president is never named in Radford Horrors 03, where he addresses the Biz as "Richard"; he is named as Yeltsin in Radford Horrors 01 and again in Radford Horrors 04.