by Peter Nealen
So, he held his position and watched, as the BRDMs lumbered to positions where they could cover most of the farm with their 14.5mm KPVT machineguns. The trucks stopped farther back, and soldiers in thick coats under their chest rigs and old Soviet-style helmets piled out of the backs. A few of the men getting out of the UAZs were in slightly different, more modern uniforms; they’d be the Russians.
Keeping his breathing shallow, he watched as the Transnistrians closed in on the farmhouse.
***
Yuri Bondarenko swallowed hard as he moved toward the farmhouse door at what he hoped was a sufficiently “tactical” pace, his well-worn AK-47 pointed ahead of him. His heart was pounding, and his knees felt a little shaky.
He hadn’t been born yet when the ’92 war with the Moldovans had kicked off. Barely nineteen years old, he’d been in the Army all of six months, and had spent most of it cleaning, doing menial working parties, training with too little in the way of ammunition, and standing guard. Now here he was, about to lead the entry into a house where Western imperialist mercenaries were holed up.
He was confident that he was tougher than any of the Westerners. Transnistrian propaganda wasn’t all that different from old Soviet propaganda. Some of the younger Transnistrians were seeing more on the Internet that made them doubt the wisdom of wishing for the good old days of the Soviet Union. Some of them were thinking that maybe the decadence of the West wasn’t so bad. Bondarenko wasn’t really one of them. He’d been on the Internet maybe three or four times in his life. He’d grown up poor, and his father and grandfather had instilled a strong sense of patriotism and Russian solidarity into him, even though his family was Ukrainian.
But facing combat for the first time is an intense experience for anyone, and Bondarenko was no different. Fear mixed with eagerness as he stepped up to the door.
Andrei Guba came up beside him, crossed the doorway, and kicked the door open. Bondarenko immediately sprayed four rounds through the darkened doorway before running through.
He couldn’t see much of the interior; the only light was coming through the open door behind him, momentarily eclipsed as Guba entered at his back, and the windows. A brief flicker of light strobed through the room along with a series of thunderclap reports as Guba fired a burst at the doorway to the single adjoining room.
The farmhouse’s main room held a stove, a rickety table, a few chairs, and a bedstead. The floor felt like packed dirt, which wasn’t uncommon. Otherwise, the room was empty.
More of their squad were piling through the door and rushing the doorway to the adjoining room. More gunfire hammered through the opening, the concussions of the muzzle blasts slapping at everyone inside the confined space. All the bullets were going one way, though. There was no return fire.
Camouflaged figures pushed through the door, blasting bullets at the corners as they went. Then the shooting stopped, and a voice called out, “Clear!”
Kapitàn Dobrolyubov came through the door and glared around the inside of the house. He was little more than a silhouette against the pale rectangle of the doorway, but his hands on his hips and his general demeanor was impossible to miss. “Where are they?” he demanded.
“The house is empty, sir,” Mlàdshiy Serzhànt Yolkin reported.
“So is the barn,” Dobrolyubov snarled. “Everyone get back to the trucks. We will regroup, then sweep the woods on line. They cannot have gotten far.”
***
Brannigan watched the soldiers come out of the house and barn, while officers shouted in Russian. His eyes narrowed as he took in what was happening, analyzing the movement even though he couldn’t understand the language.
There were no bodies being hauled out of the house, and no prisoners in evidence. A quick mental count told him that all of the troops who had flooded into the house and barn were coming back out. And one of those officers looked like he was pointing up the hill, into the woods.
Time to go. Careful to get as far behind the closest tree as he could, Brannigan started to get to his feet. Childress heard something and looked back at him, and he signaled that they had to fall back.
The word got passed down by hand and arm signals, and by the time the Transnistrians were milling into some sort of formation back by their trucks, the Blackhearts were drifting away up the slope, hidden by the trees.
***
Redrum was in a foul mood as they rolled north. Flint had been, as expected, a prick about having to pack up and move, and had, also as expected, snidely insinuated that Redrum was being a pussy.
His intensifying hatred of Flint notwithstanding, Redrum was getting pissed at how long this op was going. Leave it to the Board to decide that they needed to wring Codreanu dry first, then kill him and leave. At best, they should have dragged him out of the country, then interrogated him, then killed him. But there had been no logistical preparation for that course of action. They needed to do it in country. Because whatever shadowy pencil-pusher working up the contract had figured that an arms dealer and a career criminal should fold easily when questioned by a bunch of proper pipe-hitters.
Naturally, it hadn’t worked out. And now they were on the run, stretching out their time on target and increasing the odds that something was going to go catastrophically wrong.
His angry ruminations turned to icy calm as they came around the next turn to see a truck half-skewed around to block two thirds of the M4 Highway. His hands clenched around the M21 between his knees, and he started to regulate his breathing, preparing to bring the rifle up quickly and engage. There was no guarantee that this was an ambush; it might just be some farmer who had lost control on the slick road. But Redrum hadn’t survived as long as he had by taking chances.
Faust was driving again, and he slowed as they got closer to the truck. It looked like a farm truck, all right; there was even wool stuck to the panels in the back. But Redrum’s gaze sharpened as he looked around. There was something off. There was no farmer in evidence. He lifted the M21 to his lap and cranked his window down. The blast of cold air almost immediately overrode the ZIL’s wheezing heater.
It looked like there was barely enough room between the farm truck’s taillights and the hedge on the side of the road to squeeze past. It was going to be a tight fit, but Faust was a good driver. He slowed still more and started to thread the needle.
As he did so, four figures in green fatigues and black balaclavas stepped out from the hedge. One had an RPK-16 in his hands; the rest were carrying rifles that looked like some kind of AK variant, but one that Redrum didn’t immediately recognize.
They were definitely newer than anything he’d expected to see around Transnistria, which told him that these weren’t Transnistrian regulars. They probably weren’t even Russian regulars.
Who they were didn’t matter that much to him. He brought his M21 up, flipped the selector to auto, leaned out of the side window, and opened fire.
The Serbian rifle rattled loudly, the muzzle blast clearly visible in the early morning gray. The Little Green Men dove for cover as his 5.56 bullets kicked up geysers of snow and mud from the roadway and the shoulder.
Then Faust floored the accelerator, deciding that getting off the X was more important than finesse. Redrum had to hastily pull himself and his rifle back inside, barely missing having his muzzle brake snatched by the worn wooden panels on the farm truck’s bed. The rear-view mirror was torn off with a bang, the side panel scraped against the farm truck with a hideous shriek, and then they were past and accelerating down the highway. Redrum stuck his rifle back out the open window and tore off another burst into the hedge, just in case. He couldn’t see any targets, but he wanted to give anyone hiding back there something to think about.
As they roared up the road, he craned his neck out the open window, the freezing wind immediately giving him a headache, and looked back. Green figures were scrambling around near the truck, but they wouldn’t be able to pursue immediately. He didn’t see any other vehicles nearby. They dove
for cover again as a long, ravening burst of gunfire came from the back flap of the ZIL’s bed. That would probably be Flint. Naturally.
“Speed up,” he told Faust. “We need to put some distance behind us.” And they needed to see about ditching the ZIL and getting a different truck.
Time was definitely running out. If Flint was going to take his time, Redrum decided, he was going to simply shoot Codreanu in the head and face the music later. They couldn’t afford to dick around anymore.
Chapter 16
Three kilometers away from the farmhouse, the Blackhearts finally rallied up, finding a thick stand of trees and forming a tight perimeter. No one faced inward this time; every gun was out and up, all eyes watching for the Transnistrians or anyone else, the men’s breath forming a haze of vapor around the tree trunks.
Only after about ten minutes of silence and stillness did anyone speak up.
“Well, this has now turned into a complete and total shit-show,” Santelli whispered. “What now? Do we need to scrub and get the hell out of here?”
“Not yet,” Brannigan whispered back. “This ain’t over. Our targets weren’t there.”
“You sure?” Santelli asked. “I couldn’t see shit, but there was a lot of shooting.”
“All of it one-way,” Brannigan said. “I saw the way those clowns made entry. The shooting we heard was just them spraying down every opening they saw. I didn’t hear anybody shooting back. On top of that, they wouldn’t have spread out to search the woods if they’d accounted for their targets in the house and barn.”
“That truck was gone, too,” Hart said. “Unless they’d moved it from where Sam said it was parked.”
“Our rival mercs flew the coop before either we or the Transnistrians got there,” Brannigan concluded. “Which means they’re still out there, and they might still have Codreanu with them. Mission’s still on.”
“Until the next thing goes to shit,” Jenkins muttered.
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there,” Brannigan said, and Jenkins glanced over his shoulder sheepishly; he must not have intended that comment for general hearing. “Right now, we need to regroup and figure out where we’re going to look.”
“That’s going to be a good trick,” Hancock murmured. “If they flew the coop with the Transnistrians breathing down their necks, they’re going to be pretty gunshy. They won’t be easy to find.”
“I know,” Brannigan answered. “But we might have a source of information locally.”
There was a pause. “You’re not really going to trust that Gogol guy, are you?” Childress asked. “He’s a snake.”
“Of course he is,” Brannigan said. “And no, I don’t trust him. But he might sell us the information, for the right price. And just like before, we’re going to follow up on it very, very carefully. Advance recon, predetermined escape routes, overwatch, the works.” He shrugged, even though none of them were looking at him, but still scanning the snowy woods around them. “It’s worth a shot. Codreanu might be the only thread we have to pull on to find out who was behind the Mexico attacks. I’d say that’s worth taking a few more risks.”
He fell silent, and for a long moment, no one said anything. Brannigan just watched the woods and waited. The Blackhearts each had to think it over and get used to the idea.
He’d known stories of mercenary units that had been run as something of a free-for-all, where every merc had a say, and could walk at any time. A military unit of any stripe, however, can’t exist for long as a democracy, and while it had never been exactly spelled out, Brannigan’s Blackhearts were no exception. They joined up for each job of their own free will, but once they were on the job, Brannigan was the Man in Charge. There was no other way it could be.
So, until they extracted and got back to the States, his word was ultimately law. He’d just give the rest time to accept the plan and figure out how they were going to work with it.
“I guess the question is,” Hancock ventured, “how many more tries are we going to make at this? We’ve still got enough money that Herc can keep us in water and chow for a while, but I don’t imagine we’re going to be able to keep running around a wannabe Soviet state unhindered for too long.”
“I know,” Brannigan said. “We’re running out of time. But that means that they are, too.” He gusted a sigh, putting a smoky cloud into the morning air as he did. “Once we make contact with Gogol, we’re going to have to move fast.”
Without rushing things so much that we make a fatal mistake didn’t get voiced. It didn’t need to be.
***
The Hrustovaya safe house wasn’t much different from the Belochi one. It was a bit smaller, and there was no barn, so Redrum and the rest were stuck listening to Flint work Codreanu over. Fortunately, like the place in Belochi, there were two rooms, so at least some of them could go without seeing it.
Redrum was peering out the window at the packed snow on the bumpy dirt road out front. He was keeping well back from the glass itself and the lights were off, so he wasn’t exposed to anyone outside who might be looking in. The winter day was quiet; he’d seen a couple of the local villagers, but for the most part people seemed content to stay inside, out of the cold. Smoke rose from most of the chimneys, and the safehouse was no exception; they had a fire going in the stove to keep from freezing.
Gogol was keeping to himself, sitting as far back in the corner as he could get, his arms folded, watching the team like a trapped animal. Redrum hadn’t even let him bring extra vodka, and he was obviously severely hungover. Redrum didn’t especially care; the man would be dead as soon as they were ready to extract, anyway.
A phone jangled. Redrum looked around the room, frowning, his hand dropping to the grip of his M21. All of them were still kitted up and armed; they were on hostile ground from the moment they hit Codreanu’s dacha until extract, so they were rolling heavy.
And none of them should have a phone.
His eyes turned back toward Gogol, who was frantically digging in his pocket. A moment later, the phone went silent. Redrum took three steps across the room and loomed over the gangster, who looked up at him with a bleary squint.
“What the fuck was that?” Flint asked from the doorway behind him.
“Our little buddy here has a cell phone on him,” Redrum said quietly, his eyes fixed, unblinking, on Gogol’s face. Gogol was turning pale, his eyes widening, looking more and more like a mouse staring at a rattlesnake.
“Is that so?” Flint said, coming to stand next to Redrum. There was blood on his knuckles. “So, who’s calling, Gogol? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Long-lost cousin?” His tone was light and easy, but the deadly threat behind it was clear enough.
“Is nothing,” Gogol said. “Other business. Can wait.”
“Let me see the phone,” Redrum said, his voice flat and dead.
“I’d give it to him,” Flint said with a chuckle. “He’s kind of itching to prove something right now, and he might decide to make you an object lesson.”
Right at that moment, Redrum desperately wanted to draw his knife and plunge it into Flint’s neck, but he knew that the other man was probably waiting for him to do just that. He’d done it before; Anyone who had been around knew that Flint had provoked Slither to the point of violence, just because he wanted to kill him.
His gimlet eyes flicking back and forth between the two killers, Gogol slowly drew a phone out of his coat pocket and handed it over.
Redrum took it and looked it over. It was a cheap Samsung push-button job, absolute bare-bones, probably pre-paid. It took only a couple of button presses to unlock; those things didn’t have near the security measures of a smartphone. He brought up the “Missed Calls” menu.
The contact that had called was labeled “Americans” in Cyrillic.
He flipped the phone around to point the screen at Gogol. “Who are the ‘Americans,’ Gogol?” he asked quietly.
“Just some people I did some business with,” Gogol said, still looki
ng back and forth between him and Flint. “Business is business. They had money, they needed goods, I got them goods. That is all.”
“So, why are they calling you now?” Flint asked.
“I do not know,” the gangster said with a shrug. He was sweating, and it really wasn’t that hot inside, even with the fire roaring.
“What did they look like?” Flint asked.
Gogol shrugged again. “Like Americans,” he said. “One was black, I know that.”
Redrum glanced at Flint. The other team leader was watching Gogol with narrowed eyes, thinking. He looked over and met Redrum’s eyes, then jerked his head toward the other room.
Redrum really didn’t want to go in there, but he followed Flint anyway.
Inside, Codreanu was tied to a chair, his head hanging down to his chest. A laptop was open on the floor in front of him; clearly Flint was actually going through some information instead of just beating him to a pulp for kicks. Codreanu was still breathing, but he didn’t look up as the two men entered.
“Okay,” Flint said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that the other Westerners we heard about coming in are also after Codreanu, and they did business with Gogol for the same reasons we did. Which makes them a problem.”
As much as he hated to agree with Flint on anything, Redrum had to nod. It made sense. “What do you think we should do?”
Flint smiled. “Simple. We have Gogol call ‘em back and tell them where we are. It won’t be here; we’ll have him finger a warehouse or something, someplace that will seem like a good spot. Then we go in and kill all of ‘em. Once they’re dead, we can finish up with Codreanu and get out of here.”
For once, Redrum had to somewhat admire Flint’s professionalism. He’d avoided saying anything about Codreanu’s inevitable fate in front of him. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have put it past the man to say something just to make his victim squirm.
“Have you got a spot in mind?” he asked.
Flint thought a moment. “Let’s find out where Gogol met them the first time. Have him set up a meet there, tell ‘em that he’s got new information. We’ll let ‘em get in, then cut ‘em off and mow ‘em down.”