Line of Honor

by Don Pendleton

  the mission and everyone in it. Lkhümbengarav handed off the HongYing 5 launcher to Ceallach and clambered onto the roof of the Unimog. The Briton handed the weapon back up to him. The Mongolian flicked off the unit’s safety and powered up infrared homing in the rocket. “Ready, Striker!”

  “Val! Rad! Rover 2!” Onopkov jumped behind the big .50-caliber gun in Rover 2 and racked the bolt on a fresh belt of ammo. Mrda slid behind the wheel. Bolan cut his hand south. “Take position one hundred yards south! Sancho, get Rover 1 the same difference north and set up the .30 in the truck bed! I don’t want to lose the whole convoy in one rocket run!” Rover 1’s and Rover 2’s rear wheels spit dust as they scrambled to put distance between themselves and the Unimog. Tshabalala jumped into the Mog’s cabin and threw open the roof hatch. He racked the .30-caliber gun and pointed his weapon west alongside Lkhümbengarav. Bolan scooped up his rifle and flicked the selector to full-auto. The Hind gunship had been designed to withstand direct hits from automatic cannons. The Mongolian’s HongYing 5 was a Chinese knockoff of a not particularly effective Russian shoulder-launched SAM. “Everyone disperse! Rifle grenades if you got them!” Bolan ordered. A hit with a rifle grenade would be sheer dumb luck, but the SAM and a series of aerial explosions just might send an inexperienced Sudanese pilot scrambling for home. Bolan clicked his last antiarmor grenade onto his weapon’s muzzle. “Goose, you got eyes on?” “Not yet! But he’s right on top of me! He’s—” Bolan could hear the rotors through Pienaar’s unit. “Eyes on, Striker! It’s a Super Frelon! Civilian white-and-blue paint job! No visible markings! They have a door gun! Men and equipment in the back! Men armed and in camo!” “He see you, Goose?” “Negative, Striker! I’m in a bit of thornbush! He’s heading straight for you!” Nelsonne called from behind a rock a dozen meters away. “It seems a bit suspicious!” “Just a bit!” The Frenchwoman brandished her rifle. “And?” Bolan clicked his com link. “I want a look at these guys. Wait on my signal.” The news was met with grumbling but everyone copied back. Bolan unscrewed his rifle grenade and replaced it in his fighting vest. He could hear the medium transport’s blades slamming the sky. Bolan raised his binoculars as the chopper thundered over the little canyon. The Super Frelon was vaguely whale-shaped. The Executioner stared the pilot straight in the face through his optics. The man was Chinese, as was the copilot. Both crewmen started in alarm at the sight of the heavily armed and spread-out convoy. The door gun ripped into life and began stitching a line of dirt fountains straight for the Unimog. Bolan clicked his com link. “Hit them!” Rifles popped and cracked on full-auto and Onopkov’s .50 jackhammered into life. Lkhümbengarav’s SAM sizzled out of its tube. The pilot violently banked away spewing infrared flares from both sides of the fuselage as if it was the Fourth of July. Shiny objects easily distracted the HongYing 5, and the Mongolian swore as his missile veered hard to go flying after a falling flare. Bolan dropped his binoculars on their strap and brought his rifle to bear. Flame stuttered from his muzzle as he put thirty rounds into the French helicopter in passing. Onopkov swung the big .50 around on its mount and poured fire into the aircraft’s aft section. He was rewarded as smoke belched out of the chopper’s exhausts and its banking maneuver turned into an ugly half-controlled slide across the sky. Bolan had already reloaded and was running straight for Rover 1. “Scotty! Lucky! With me!” The big American took the shotgun position and got behind the hood-mounted .30 caliber gun. Ochoa had already taken the gunner’s position beneath the recoilless gun. The springs creaked as Ceallach jumped in the back and slammed a shell into the weapon’s breech. Lkhümbengarav jumped behind the wheel and put the pedal down. The Mongolian sent the Rover streaking out of the little canyon and precipitously straight up a hillside. The Rover bucked and leaped, and nearly rolled and tipped over backward. Ochoa whooped, Ceallach made a noise that sounded suspiciously like fear and Bolan held on for dear life. Lkhümbengarav was grinning as he gripped the wheel and muttered some kind of Mongolian mantra beneath his breath. He aimed straight for the top. Black smoke was trailing up into the air somewhere behind it. The vehicle crested the hill without losing any men or matériel. The chopper had sat down between Bolan’s hill and the next. The range was six hundred yards. The Super Frelon was smoking, but her rotors were still turning. Ochoa declinated the tube of the recoilless gun on its mount. “Striker—” Bolan clapped his hands over his ears. “Hit them!” Five motorcycles burst out of the chopper’s cargo cabin and spit blue smoke as they charged forward. The recoilless heavy machine gun unleashed thunder. Bolan’s eardrums tried to meet in the middle of his head as the chopper tipped over with the blast. The rotors snapped off as they struck the ground, and the Frelon tipped back onto its wheels. The soldier ignored the ringing in his ears and leaned into the hood-mounted PKM. The bikers streaked for a gap in the hills. Bolan walked his tracers into the back of one of the bikers, and the rider popped a wheelie and fell off his bike. The other four went airborne for a moment as they hit a dip and disappeared into the hills. Ceallach opened the smoking breech of the recoilless gun and shoved in a fresh shell. He slammed the breech shut with a clang and slapped Ochoa on the shoulder, but there was nothing left to fire at. Lkhümbengarav yawned at his ringing ears. “You want to go after them?” Bolan shook his head. “We’ll never catch them. Not in the Rover.” Ochoa slapped the barrel of his recoilless antitank gun. “Four guys on bikes? No refuel? No supplies? Those vatos won’t get far. We hunt ’em down easy.” “They’re not going far, Sancho.” “No?” “I know you were busy, and good shooting, by the way, but did you notice how they were armed?” “Uh…no.” Bolan handed Ochoa his binoculars, who took a look at the rider the big American had brought down. He paused as he took in the long, black, scope-sighted rifle lying a few yards from its owner. Ochoa’s shoulder sagged. “Aw, shit.” “Those vatos are snipers, Sancho, and now they’re hunting us.” 9 Captain Osmani and Yellow Mnan regarded each other beneath a flag of truce. The two men had never met, but they were aware of each other. Both men were predators who feasted on the bones of the Sudanese civil wars. Their bread and butter was human misery and as the open warfare ran down, competition for that invaluable resource was getting stiffer. Two African-apex predators found themselves on the same hunting grounds. Osmani believed Mnan even uglier than he had been led to believe and his men as raggedy as beggars. Mnan knew Osmani’s reputation, but the captain’s broken nose and swollen jaw made Mnan wonder about a warlord who let himself get beaten up in front of his men by an unarmed man. Mnan made only a token effort to conceal his speculation. The albino ran his eyes over Osmani and Rao’s caravan. Once they had entered the wasteland the Chinese SUVs had sprouted weaponry. “Very pretty,” Mnan said. “I had eleven technicals of my own. Then I ran into your American.” Osmani made little attempt to hide his contempt. Rao was eyeing the quad-mounted 23 and the milling horsemen. “How many men do you have under arms?” Mnan shrugged. “Perhaps four score and ten.” Rao nodded thoughtfully, and it was abundantly clear what he was thinking. “I saw a helicopter pass over,” Mnan commented. “It was flying very low and very fast.” “That was mine,” Rao allowed. “Was?” “The American destroyed it.” “Yes.” Mnan nodded sympathetically. “He is very annoying that way.” “However, I have managed to insert a pair of sniper teams ahead of him.” “Interesting.” Mnan ran his eyes over the caravan. “I gather you are about to suggest we pool our resources?” “The thought had occurred to me.” Captain Osmani put his hands on his hips. “Of course, I am in command.” Mnan looked back and forth between Osmani and Rao and smiled. “Of course you are.” Osmani scowled. Corporal Kiir bristled behind him. Mnan ignored both soldiers and smiled at Rao. “Now, what is this about snipers?” * * * “SHOW OF HANDS,” Bolan said. “Besides Rad, how many snipers do I have?” Ching, Nelsonne and Ceallach raised their hands. “T.C.?” “I am sniper qualified, though in the three sniper missions on which I was deployed I acted as the spotter.” “Good enough. Russo?” Nelsonne shrugged. “I traine
d as a sniper with the DGSE, but I must tell you it was strictly for urban operations and I was never deployed in the role.” “Scotty?” “I qualified as sharpshooter for my unit, pretty much the same as you Yanks’ ‘designated marksman.’” “Rad, you ever deploy?” Mrda stared at Bolan for several long, measuring moments and lit himself a cigarette. “Sarajevo.” “Sniper alley?” The Serb blew smoke and considered the glowing tip. “Yes. Twenty confirmed kills.” Bolan measured the man. “Sniper Alley” had become the nickname of Sarajevo’s main boulevard during the Bosnian conflict. It connected the industrial district to Old Town and was lined with high-rises. For a small window in time in the 1990s it had been considered the most dangerous place on Earth. Both sides had considered NGO workers, UN peacekeepers and civilians fair game. “Right, two teams. T.C., you’re spotting for me,” Bolan said. “Scotty, you’re spotting for Rad. Ideally these guys want to put the convoy in a cross fire, shoot a driver or two and pin us down while God knows who else is coming up behind us. If we don’t show in the next twenty-four hours, they’re going to break position and come creeping in on us and try to disable our vehicles. We don’t have the time to waste to lay a countertrap, so we’re going to creep them now.” Bolan had only gotten a quick look at the Chinese team. “T.C., what kind of armament are we expecting?” “The primary sniper-shooter will carry a JS rifle. They are accurate to outside eight hundred meters. The spotters will have semiautomatics with scopes. Either QBU-88s or Dragunovs like Rad’s.” Mrda blew three smoke rings and bull’s-eyed them with a thin stream of smoke as they expanded. “Were I them, I would expect some kind of attack.” “Me, too, but if the Chinese have been in contact with the guys behind us, they know we’re packing light support weapons. They’ll be betting we’ll try to punch our way out. I don’t think they’ll be expecting a sniper team, much less two of them. Their motorcycles have left an easy trail.” Ching grimaced. “One they will be watching if they are clever.” “That’s why one team will split off wide and shadow the other.” Ceallach scratched his head. “Not to be a total arsehole, squire…” “You?” Bolan shook his head. “Never.” The Briton snorted. “Right, then. Who’s Team 1 and who’s Team 2?” “T.C. and I are Team 1. You and Rad are Team 2. You’ll break wide, shadow us and have our six when and if the firefight starts. If we spot the enemy first, you and Rad will flank them. None of them get back on their bikes to run ahead and try again tomorrow night. Clear?” Everyone was clear. “Lucky, how are we on rifle grenades?” “Low on the antiarmor. We used up about half on the technicals. Still got a crate of frags.” “Issue two frags to the spotters. Issue each team member four hand grenades. Two frags, a concussion and a Willie Pete. Break out night-vision gear. Hand me the green rifle case from the back.” “On it.” Lkhümbengarav loped for the small armory in the back of the Unimog. Bolan’s sniper teams lined up for gear. Kurtzman had arranged the convoy’s weapons locally and most were Chinese. However, Bolan had brought along a personal item or two. The Mongolian handed Bolan his case and the warrior unlimbered his rifle. The M-24 Sniper Weapon System was standard U.S. Army and Marine Corps issue. Bolan’s weapon chambered the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge and sported a