by Eric Meyer
"It'll be even better if we can get out of here. We still have to evade those troops, and the way I see it, there's no way to get away without them seeing us."
"We have the AK-9," Waite reminded him, "It's pretty quiet."
"I know. Can you handle them?"
"You jest," he chuckled, "Militia? I like to eat those guys for breakfast."
"A single shot will bring half the Russian Army breathing down our necks. Waite, this is going to need some good shooting. And I mean real good."
The big man considered. "I'll need a diversion, something to make the others look away as I take them down."
"I can do that."
"I need all three of you. Here's how it'll go down."
Five minutes later they were in position. Waite had established a set of hand signals, and they were spaced equally around the militia position. Raider waited, and then the first signal came for him, a single finger, almost invisible in the dusk. He coughed twice.
The two men closest to him whirled, looking away from Waite's first two targets. There was only a faint noise, two audible coughs, and they went down. None of the soldiers noticed, even when Waite ran to lower the second victim gently to the grass. Seconds later, he dropped out of sight.
He watched keenly, but Waite was invisible as he crawled to his next position. Three fingers went up, the signal for Joe. He heard a slight scrape, very much like the butt of a Bizon submachine gun touching concrete. A nearby militiaman who'd just walked out onto the grass to relieve his bladder, buttoned up his pants, unslung his rifle, and went to investigate. The man went down with a bullet through his throat. Three down, nine to go, including the men in the jeep.
Another single finger, and he coughed again. This time a Russian was walking directly toward him, probably an NCO coming to check on his two men. A faint sound from the rifle and he fell to the ground. Another single finger, and this time he gave out a groan. A young private ran toward him and fell across the body of his sergeant; Waite's bullet speared him between the eyes.
Two fingers went up, and Al scraped a shoe on concrete. Another man went down, and so it went until there were only the two soldiers in the jeep with the heavy machine gun. They were looking around, watchful and wary. The absence of the other man had made them suspicious. The loader called out something in Russia. Something like, 'Sergeant Demedov, where are your men?"
Silence.
The gunner spoke to him, and they looked around wildly, starting to panic.
Waite, shoot the bastards before it's too late!
Almost as he willed the thought, Waite fired two shots, one for each man. The gunner went down with a hole drilled into his skull. The other shot missed. The loader turned his head around at the last moment, and the bullet zinged past him. He must have felt the passage of air as the hot lead missed him by no more than an inch, and he made a grab for the machine gun.
He swiveled the barrel around, searching for the shooter. Waite fired twice more, but the man was huddled behind the steel shield of the gun, and the rounds pinged off the metal.
Noise! The entire force will be alerted if it goes on any longer.
Raider gripped the Stechkin, catapulted to his feet, and charged forward. He raced across the dark field, hurtling toward the machine gun. It was a distance of twenty-five meters, and for every meter he knew all the man had to do was turn his head a fraction and see him. He'd squeeze the trigger, and those huge 12.7mm bullets would rip through his body. The rest of the troops would come on the run; he'd be dead, and the mission would be over. It would be over for Abigail as well.
His legs pounded, and the breath scorched through his lungs as he sped across the grass. Nearer, nearer, he only had one thought.
I have to make it.
Waite fired again, and he winged the soldier after he'd exposed his shoulder outside the shield. The man winced and put up his hand to staunch the blood. His expression changed in an instant from terror to anger. He drew his lips back in a vicious snarl, and his determination to kill the unknown shooter was written on his face. He concentrated hard, squinting through the darkness to locate Waite, which enabled Raider to get closer. He was only five meters from the Gaz when he heard him. The man's head jerked around, and he stared in astonishment at the dark shape hurtling toward him.
Even as he covered the last few meters, Raider smiled as the soldier gaped, realizing his assailant wore a suit with a collar and tie. Probably it gave him an extra half-second, a half second of life in which to close the gap another couple of meters. The soldier suddenly came to life, and he began swinging the heavy barrel around.
A mistake. He had an assault rifle slung on his back. He could have reached it in time to shoot the man who was about to leap on him. But the heavy machine gun gave him no chance. He was still traversing the barrel when Raider jumped him. With a last desperate leap, he landed on the jeep. He brought the barrel of the Stechkin down on the man's head just below the rim of his steel helmet, and the soldier started to fall. Even as he died, he sounded the alarm.
His finger was inside the trigger guard of the NSV heavy machine gun. The weapon had a rate of fire of thirteen rounds a second, and an effective range of fifteen hundred meters. The ammunition belt contained fifty rounds, each a half-inch in diameter with the business end of the slug a two-ounce lead tip. The bullet would not penetrate heavy armor but would chew anything less to shreds. The NSV was also noisy, very noisy. The finger that squeezed the trigger was held down by the weight of the man's body, and even as Raider struggled to pull him away, the gun fired. And kept firing.
The belt emptied. Fifty 12.7mm rounds, some of them tracer, shot up the airfield, and the noise was like the hammer of the Gods, a call for men to meet their fate. Searchlights began sweeping the field, searching for the attack, and voices shouted urgent orders. Raider cursed his failure, but he swallowed it and shouted at the other men to climb aboard the jeep. The need for silence had disappeared, along with their chances of making a clean getaway.
"Get aboard fast, and we'll try to drive out of here before they realize we're not their own men."
He started the engine and was already driving away as they leapt into the Gaz. He steered away from the control tower, driving toward a dimly lit area close to the general aviation area. The Dragan Gulfstream was on the stand, illuminated by overhead floodlights and surrounded by troops. Five hundred meters away, the harsh spread of light ended, and there was a patch of blackness.
Beyond the darkness had to be the perimeter fence, which he intended to hammer through by ramming it with the Gaz.
"Hostiles coming in," Al shouted above the roar of the engine. He was perched behind the gun, "It's a jeep like this one."
"Mounted machine gun?"
"That, too."
"Those guys will be pissed, now we've wasted some of their friends. They'll shoot first, and then pick up the pieces. Get them before they fill us full of holes."
"I'm on it."
In the mirror, he could see Al hunched over the butt of the gun, and Waite latching the next belt of ammo ready. The Russians fired first, a long line of tracer. Lead flashed past the hood of the Gaz like a trail of fireflies. 12.7mm fireflies, and it was good shooting, too good. The second burst would likely hit them. Al opened fire, calm and precise, and he vectored his shots onto the target. A veteran of a hundred such engagements, his first burst struck the Gaz's hood. He walked the rest of the rounds over the Russian jeep, almost as if he was spray-painting the bodywork. The result was spectacular. First the gunner went down, and then he hosed down the other men. In his death throes, the driver dragged the steering wheel over, and the vehicle did a spectacular somersault, flipping upside down on the grass. It caught fire.
Raider kept his foot pressed to the floor, mentally urging the lumbering vehicle to go faster, to put distance between them and the line of vehicles hot on their tail. They'd been almost invisible in the darkness when the wrecked jeep's fuel tank exploded. In a split second, flames
from the spilled gasoline lighted up the airfield. Immediately, the Russians spotted them, switched their aim, and targeted the fleeing vehicle, more rifle and machine gun fire tearing up the ground around them.
"Boss, there's some kind of a bunker a hundred meters to the left. It could shield us from the gunfire."
"I see it." Like a low hill, it probably contains emergency firefighting equipment for the airfield.
He spun the steering wheel over, and volleys of bullets spat past them. Without the change of direction, they'd have been ripped apart by the pursuing gunfire. Roiling smoke from the burning jeep obscured them from the enemy, and he managed to steer behind cover. For a few moments, they were safe from incoming bullets. They glanced at each other as they heard the distinctive roar of a helo engine as the machine took off.
"We have to assume it's a gunship," he said, "They'll be on us in seconds, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it."
"We're only a hundred meters from the perimeter fence," Joe murmured, "We could let them think we're trying to make a run for it."
"In this? Us against a gunship?"
"Not us, just the vehicle." He quickly explained his plan, and Raider nodded and smiled.
"The helo is getting nearer," Waite interrupted. As he spoke, the airfield lit up from the beam of an airborne searchlight.
"Okay, we're leaving."
He stamped his foot on the gas pedal, and Joe leaned forward to wedge the vehicle jack against the pedal so he could remove his boot. They drove at full speed toward the fence, and Joe fastened his tie to the steering wheel, forcing the Gaz to steer a straight line.
"I need your tie, too. It's not enough."
Thankfully, he ripped it off his collar. "I always knew these things would be useful."
Joe finished lashing the wheel, just as the helo leapt into view. A second later, the searchlight had them in its beam. They were almost at the fence, and he tensed, waiting for the impact of the gunfire. It never came.
"It's not a gunship," Al shouted, "It's an unarmed rescue job. They'll keep us in the searchlight beam and vector the troops onto us. We have a few seconds before they arrive."
The helo was bouncing around in the sky, making it difficult for the pilot to handle the controls so close to the ground. The light stayed on them for a second, and then whipped away, returning a second later as he regained control.
"Time it for when the light is off us and jump!" he shouted, "Wait until we're though the fence."
He took his hands off the wheel, and the jeep raced on, heading straight for the wire. It was rolls of razor wire, a thick steel entanglement that would tear them to pieces and hold them on its vicious spikes. Unless...
"Go now!"
As one man, they leapt from the fast moving vehicle as the searchlight beam moved off them for a second. He rolled into the grass with the others, and they lay flat. The heavy Gaz hit the wire and slowed as the vicious barbs clutched at every part of the bodywork. Then it was through, charging out the other side. If they'd stayed aboard, they'd have been skewered on the wire, their torn bodies awaiting the vengeful Russians.
The gunfire restarted, and a hurricane of machine gun bullets pursued the Gaz. It was still speeding on a straight line, an easy target. Within seconds, the raking fire ripped apart the vehicle, and it veered up on two wheels. Someone fired a shoulder-launched missile that struck the Gaz, and it exploded in gouts of flame and smoke. Chunks of bodywork and engine rained down as the Russians came past where they lay in the grass. The shooting had stopped. They watched the flaming wreck, satisfied their work was done.
"We have about five minutes before the fire dies down, and they start looking for bodies," he told them, "When they discover they're not there, they'll go crazy. It's time we left."
"A stroll through the Russian countryside," Waite smiled, "I could do with some fresh air, good company. This is the life."
"They'll rip us apart if they find us, piece by piece."
The smile left his face. "When do we leave?"
He led them through the gap in the wire and skirted the blazing Gaz. The Russians were staring into the fire, which ruined their night vision, and they passed unseen. They walked away, heading toward the rendezvous area. As he walked, he speculated on what they'd find. Had Paul Vann been arrested, the aircraft impounded? If so, their weapons and supplies were gone. On the other hand, there was no reason they'd connect the battle at the airfield with Vann and his aircraft. He decided they'd probably put the attack down to bandits or separatists. There were more than a few militant groups who liked to take potshots at the new Russian Federation.
They had plenty of enemies. Chechens, Ukrainians, virtually the entire population of the southern independent states. Muslims of course, they'd shoot at anyone. Then there was organized crime, the Mafiya. There were more than enough culprits to blame for the attack at the airfield. Besides, they'd seen the aircraft land, and had even searched it. Vann would come out clean, so they'd let him go. In which case, they'd get their weapons.
It took them two hours to reach the rendezvous, staying close to the road. They had to dive into the rough ground next to the verges and lay flat every time cars and trucks drove past. There were more than a few infantry trucks, laden with troops and military jeeps, searching for the attackers. They played their searchlights around the verges, and several times, Raider's group had to press their faces deep into the dirt to stay out of the telltale beams. They were exhausted when they got there, and they found a place to rest in the kiosk of an abandoned gas station at the side of the E97.
"At least it isn't snowing," Al grunted, "I thought I was going to die up there in Northern Russia."
"We nearly did die," he pointed out with a smile, "I'll call Vann. It's time our supplies got here."
Paul Vann answered his satphone on the first ring. He didn't sound happy.
"I thought it'd be you. You know what trouble we had getting out of that airport? They were going crazy with all of the shooting and shit flying everywhere. What were you doing, trying to start a war?"
"Something like that. When you say trouble, I take it you didn't have to do any fighting. I assume you mean the amount of bribe money you had to fork out."
He hesitated a fraction of a second, understanding the sarcastic note in Raider's voice. "Yeah, I guess so. You're all okay?"
"Yes. Where are our supplies?"
"Uh, they're on the way. The security operation shut everything down. It’s lucky they didn’t see through the crates of weapons during the search."
"I assume it was a thousand dollar slice of luck?"
"Five thousand dollars, if you really want to know. But it wasn't just the airfield. For a time nothing moved on the roads. He should be there any time now. What's the plan?"
Raider checked the time on the satphone display. "It's almost midnight. We have to make the assault on Malenkov's place at least two hours before dawn, to give us time to clean up and get out. As soon as we have our gear, we'll prepare for the assault."
"You don't have enough men, John. Not to deal with Malenkov's forces. There're too many of them."
"We can..."
"No, hold on. I've sent you some extra troops. They'll lend some weight to the attack."
"Extra troops? What are they, local crooks, hoodlums?"
"They're local Mafiya."
"What?"
He went on quickly. "I talked to Vladimir Gublinsky again. He knows what you're planning. After he gave us the information about Malenkov's compound, how could he not know? He offered to send along some of his men, and I agreed."
"I don't want Mafiya hoods, Paul."
"These men are good, not the usual run of strong-arm men. Some of them are former Special Forces, Spetsnaz, paras, and so on. They all have extensive weapons experience and training."
He thought quickly. They were badly outnumbered, no question. In the end, he decided to accept the offer. They already knew about the operation, so if they didn't com
e along, they'd likely find a local bar to get drunk and start shooting their mouths off.
"Okay, I accept. But they take orders from me! I don't want any arguments, not on an operation like this."
"Sure, I already told them. Their leader is Grigory Rasputin."
"You're kidding me, the Mad Monk? He died a hundred years ago."
"Same name. I guess his parents had a sense of humor."
"How will I know him?"
A chuckle. "You'll recognize him when you see him, believe me. And he speaks good English. You won't regret it, John, they're good men."
"They damn well better be! You know what's at stake."
"Abigail."
"Right. Don't forget it. I'll call you when there's anything to report. If we succeed, we'll need a rapid exfil."
"A what?"
"Transport to get us out."
"Uh, okay. Just let me know when and where, and I'll have the trucks standing by."
He ended the call; four trucks were slowing at the front of the gas station. They halted, and men began to climb out. A huge, bearded man approached the kiosk, shambling toward them like a lumbering bear. His massive body stretched the seams of his coat as if nothing would be large enough to contain this man. He carried a weapon over one shoulder, a Kord heavy machine gun like the one they'd used in the attack on the Pamyat building. The gun was heavy. It must have weighed almost sixty pounds, yet he carried it as if it was a .22 rifle.
Raider stepped out into the open. "Rasputin?"
The dark, bearded face split open, and a row of gleaming white teeth showed. "I am Grigory Rasputin. You are Raider?"
"Yeah. Tell me what you've brought, how many men?"
He went into an explanation of troops and equipment, as his men stood around him, watching. There were eighty Mafiya soldiers in all and armed with an assortment of weapons. All of them were all festooned with webbing containing spare clips and bandoliers of ammunition, like Mexican bandits. They'd brought along the explosives Waite requested, together with a heavy machine gun mounted in the bed of one of the trucks, and two RPG missile launchers.