Gray Salvation

by Alan McDermott

  Once his body readjusted to the surroundings, Gray flicked off the NVGs to conserve the battery, then closed his eyes to try and grab some sleep. The constant whine of the engine and hypnotic thwack of the rotor blades as they sliced through the air produced the soporific effect he needed to drift off.

  What seemed like only seconds later, McGregor’s voice exploded in his headset: ‘Fifteen minutes out!’

  Gray was instantly alert. The others were already carrying out their final checks, ensuring rounds were chambered in their rifles and handguns, and that their grenades and knives were secure. Gray went over his own gear one more time, then put his face against the window. The rain was still lashing the bird, but through the rivers obfuscating the glass he could still make out lights on the ground in the distance.

  McGregor let the altitude bleed off, then warned his passengers that they had ten seconds to exit the bird once they hit dirt.

  Gray powered on his night-sights and braced himself, one hand on the door handle while the other gripped his AK-47. When the aircraft touched down, it was with a gentle kiss, and Gray threw the door open and jumped to the ground. He ran twenty yards through slick mud and brought his rifle up, searching for any signs that their approach had been detected. As he’d hoped, the landscape was clear.

  Seconds later, the downdraught blew rain sideways as McGregor took their transport a safe distance from the landing zone. Gray waited for silence to return, then gathered the men and checked his GPS to guide them in the right direction.

  The rain and sodden ground made it heavy going, and they arrived at their first port of call twenty minutes behind schedule. Gray was the first to see the canopy covering the petrol pumps and the small shop adjacent. The station was based on the edge of Dubrany, one of those last-stop-for-a-hundred-miles places before civilisation gave way to endless taiga. He ordered the men to take a knee and scoped it out. As expected, there was no sign of life. It looked like the fuel station had been abandoned, but there was still a chance some petrol remained in the underground reservoirs. If not, it would be the most pitiful diversion in history.

  Sonny and Smart stooped and ran forward, while the rest of the team covered them. Gray watched them check the shop for signs of life, and then run to the two fuel pumps. Sonny extracted the first of the shaped charges and fastened it to the base of the dispenser, while Smart mirrored his actions on the other pump. Seconds later they were on their way back.

  ‘We gave them an extra thirty minutes because of the conditions,’ Smart said. ‘We don’t want them to go off too early.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  Gray put Mark Howard on point and told him to set a decent pace. Normal walking pace was about three miles per hour, and they would need to manage at least double that to get to the kick-off point on time. The slippery conditions underfoot didn’t help, and Howard soon had them all blowing as they covered the first mile in just seven minutes. By that time their clothes were saturated, and wind chill brought the temperature down to well below zero.

  Howard suddenly stopped and raised a hand, causing the rest of the team to freeze. Gray went up front to find out what was causing the hold-up.

  ‘Over there,’ Howard said, pointing towards the town. They were skirting it at a range of five hundred yards, far enough away to have the rain dampen the sound of their passage.

  Gray saw a light coming from one of the buildings. ‘Looks like a fire,’ he noted. His goggles showed a couple of figures standing around it, obviously trying to stay warm. The idea that everyone would be asleep when they attacked had been more in hope than anything else, and Gray warned the men to expect more sentries along the way.

  ‘Let’s move further out,’ he told Howard.

  The point man took them another two hundred yards from the nearest building before continuing to circumnavigate the town. It added a few minutes to the time, and Gray urged him to up the pace a little.

  By the time they reached the insertion point, a few legs were suffering from the sapping march, but they’d made it a few minutes ahead of schedule. That gave them time to rub cramped calves and catch their breath.

  They would be entering the town between two buildings, and for the first time they saw that a large chain-link fence stood in their way. It hadn’t shown up on the overhead satellite images, but a closer inspection showed that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The metal was rusty and there were several spots where it had pulled away from the supporting posts. Gray tugged at a corner and made a hole big enough for Smart to crawl through, then urged the others to follow. When the last man was through, he slipped into the gap and pulled the fence back into place as best he could.

  Gray scanned the area, looking for an indication that someone had heard their approach, but all he saw were square silhouettes, and the only sound was the constant pat-pat-pat as the rain continued unabated.

  He slapped Sonny on the back. ‘Go.’

  Smart followed, then Howard and Doc, with Gray taking up the rear. They moved cautiously, aware that at any moment a Russian militant could step out in front of them or, worse, spot them from one of the many windows they were passing beneath.

  Smart stopped and pointed to an alleyway, and Doc came forward to take up his position. The medic quietly cleared a space between two dumpsters, then crouched and took the Sentinel control unit from his backpack. After a moment to let the machine power on, he gave a thumbs-up and slid back into his hiding place.

  The others hung around, waiting for the diversion to kick off. Gray was checking his watch, and held up a fist as the second hand ticked towards the twelve. He was rewarded with a distant Crump! Crump! as the devices they’d planted at the petrol station shook the night.

  Gray spread his fingers, indicating that they would give it five minutes before moving out. That would be enough time for anyone in the area to be alerted to the explosion and show themselves. Their rifles were pointed towards the mouth of the alley, but no-one sprinted past and no lights came on.

  Gray moved to the entrance and checked up and down the narrow street, then waved for the others to follow. He took the lead, sticking close to the wall, the nose of his rifle darting in all directions as he sought a threat.

  After a hundred yards he stopped and signalled for Smart to set up the first of the Sentinels in a pile of rubble. His second-in-command removed the first of the two devices he carried in his pack and set it down among the debris created by a long-ago mortar strike, then flicked it into life and used his comms unit to make sure Doc had a good angle of fire.

  When the response was positive, Smart stood and joined the others. They continued their slow progress towards the police station, stopping every couple of hundred yards to plant more Sentinels.

  Sonny was crouching to place the fourth when the sound of an engine froze him to the spot. Lights illuminated the end of the street, and a truck filled with armed men roared into view.

  The men made themselves as small as possible, trying to blend into the shadows, and Gray let out the breath he’d been holding when the vehicle passed out of sight. He urged Sonny to hurry, then checked the GPS. They were still a mile from the police headquarters, and he wanted to get there before the fire on the outskirts was extinguished and everyone headed back into town.

  Sonny got confirmation from Doc, and straightened as the sudden squeal of brakes resounded against the buildings. Red tail lights could be seen at the end of the street, their glow intensifying.

  ‘They’re coming back,’ Gray warned, and sprinted to a doorway opposite. The others spread out, finding whatever cover they could. Sonny flattened himself behind the small pile of rocks he’d been using to disguise his Sentinel, while Howard and Smart dashed into the gap between two houses.

  Shouts came from the end of the street and Gray wished he had someone who could translate, but Doc was well out of earshot, and Melling had been sent home. All he could do was hope it was someone looking for a place to take a leak, otherwise the mission was
about to get noisy.

  Gray leaned his rifle into the corner of the doorway and eased his other hand to his sidearm, slowly pulling it from its holster, while taking care not to expose any part of his body. He held the suppressed pistol by his side, silently praying for the approaching figures to turn and leave, but they kept advancing, their shadows casting eerie shapes across the wall opposite.

  Gray hoped for a movie moment in which the bad guy gets called back just before he discovers the hero, but reality was firmly in charge. He watched the snout of a rifle come into view and knew he was a split second from being discovered. His pistol rose as he took half a step into the open, his other arm coming up to form a two-handed grip. The first two rounds took out the man nearest him and he spun to get the other figure in his sights. The speed of his attack had been enough to catch the second man off guard, and a double tap to the chest sent him sprawling backwards, the RIP rounds performing better than even Gray expected.

  ‘We’ve got to take the rest down before they raise the alarm,’ he said over the net. He’d already grabbed his rifle and was sprinting towards the sound of the idling truck. He heard footsteps behind as the others followed his lead.

  At the end of the street, he stuck a quarter of his head around the building and saw the vehicle waiting ten yards away. Gray counted nine men sitting in the back, trying to stay dry, and whispered for Sonny to join him in taking them out. Howard and Smart were tasked with clearing the cab, and within fifteen seconds the shooting was over.

  For the moment.

  ‘Now what?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘We go back and pick up those bodies, then take the truck and dump it somewhere. We can’t have people swarming all over here when we come back out.’

  They made short work of retrieving the dead, and once they were loaded into the back of the vehicle, Gray got the team to pull down the heavy canvas side panels to conceal the gruesome cargo before climbing in among the dead.

  Smart climbed into the driver’s seat, pushing the previous occupant into the right-hand foot well. He gunned the engine and sped along the main street, past shops long since abandoned. At the junction, he stopped to let a small convoy of similar trucks pass, then tagged on to the rear of them. Two blocks later, he took a sharp right and after a hundred yards pulled into the car park of a city school.

  Smart pulled around the back of the building and killed the engine. He jumped out and found Gray already on the ground checking his GPS and online map.

  ‘We’re about six hundred yards from the police station,’ Gray said. ‘The most direct route is round the back of this building, over the wall and turn right, but we’ll have to cross two main roads.’

  ‘There’s no other way in, unless we backtrack,’ Smart pointed out. ‘That adds nearly two miles to the journey.’

  Gray agreed. The rain had partially let up, but a ten-foot wall remained a significant obstacle to his team. With no viable alternative, he led the team to the barrier, where they found a metal gate offering access to the adjoining street. One broken lock later, they slipped onto a quiet road. They’d already taken much longer than anticipated, so Gray led them at a sprint towards the next major intersection. Here, lights shone in a lot more buildings than he’d hoped for.

  He signalled for his men to stay hidden as another couple of vehicles roared down the street, heading in the direction of the fire that still illuminated the skyline despite the rain. Once the tail lights were far enough away, Gray sprinted across the road and into the doorway of a bank. He waited for shouts to announce that he’d been discovered, but thankfully none came.

  Sonny led the others across the road, and the four men jogged down a side street. Gray halted them before the next junction and checked their progress on his GPS set.

  ‘Once we cross the next road, there’s only two hundred yards to the target. Everyone know what they’re supposed to do?’

  Nods all round.

  ‘Okay. Here we go.’

  Gray once again took point and edged towards the corner of the building. With no traffic on the road, he ran as fast as he could across the four lanes and pressed himself against a wall, consumed by the shadows. Seconds later, the team was back together and they could see the fortress-like police station looming in the distance.

  It was hard to miss.

  Floodlights painted the inner walls white, and outside the perimeter wall there were three vehicles surrounded by at least twenty men.

  ‘It’ll be impossible to get past them without things kicking off,’ Smart said.

  Gray had been thinking the same thing, and once the bullets started flying, it was inevitable that every available Russian and militia member would be called in to help quell the attack. It was exactly the scenario he’d hoped to avoid, but short of calling off the mission and abandoning Harvey to his fate, he was out of options. They had to go in, but their chances of success had greatly diminished. They had no cover, whereas the guards had the vehicles to hide behind.

  Gray had the feeling it was going to be a very short encounter, and not one they were likely to walk away from.

  ‘Tom, let’s plant the remaining Sentinels here and flank them.’

  Gray looked at Sonny, who’d suggested the idea.

  ‘Place two here and the other two twenty yards farther back,’ Sonny continued, ‘then we backtrack and come at them from the adjacent street. Doc can keep them occupied while we get behind them.’

  ‘Do it,’ Gray said, glad that someone on the team was thinking clearly.

  He relayed the plan to Doc and told him to wait for his signal before engaging the enemy.

  The four devices were set up within two minutes. Smart, Sonny and Howard followed Gray back to the main road, then edged along the front of a burnt-out supermarket to the next corner.

  Gray stuck his head round and saw the rear of one of the vehicles, a twenty-year-old Toyota Hilux pickup with a .50-calibre machine gun nestled in the flat bed.

  Gray set his comms unit to Open channel, so he wouldn’t have to click his throat mic every time he wanted to relay orders, then made sure his men were set. They edged forward silently, until they were within fifty feet of the gated entry to the police station where the Russians were gathered.

  ‘Doc, light ’em up.’

  Almost immediately he heard the sound of bullets pinging off metal as Doc opened up with the first of the Sentinels. Gray saw a man jump into the back of the Toyota and begin returning fire at an unseen enemy, spraying the huge rounds down the street and into the darkness.

  Gray pulled a fragmentation grenade from his webbing, tugged out the pin and broke into a sprint as he sent the orb arcing towards the vehicle. It landed in the flat bed with a thud, and the Russian barely had time to look down before he was thrown ten feet in the air, his legless corpse landing on the cab.

  ‘We’re moving in, Doc. Pick your targets!’

  Gray and Howard ran to the truck and used it as cover while Smart hugged the corner of the building and added his own fire to the mix. Half of the Russians fell in the first few seconds of the fight, the accurate fire of their assailants picking them off mercilessly.

  Sonny broke from cover and ran towards the second vehicle, an open-topped Land Rover. Two men lay beside it, one of them with an arm raised in a plea for help, but there was simply no way they could afford to take prisoners. Sonny administered a quick shot to the head and took the man out of the equation, knowing the same would have happened to him if their roles were reversed.

  The rest of the Russians were pinned down, caught between the unseen foe at their front and the black-clad figures picking them off from the rear.

  Bullets ricocheted off the corner of the building as Smart lobbed another grenade towards an open-sided truck. It rolled beneath the vehicle and blew out the back wheels, crushing a Russian who had taken cover under the rear axle. Sonny added a grenade of his own, throwing it into the back of the truck and killing the two men who were hunkering down inside.

>   ‘Doc, cease fire!’

  Gray cautiously moved around the back of the Toyota, seeking out new targets. But all he found were bodies. He instructed the men to follow him as he ran to the open gates and scanned for other threats.

  Two men crashed through the front door of the police station, their rifles blazing. Gray and Smart cut them down and moved in, with Sonny and Howard following up.

  ‘Wait,’ Gray said, noticing the diesel-powered generator at the side of the building. He ran towards it and removed the pin from a fragmentation grenade, then wedged the explosive device between the power lead and the wall before retreating.

  Three seconds later, the building was shrouded in darkness.

  Goggles in place, Gray instructed Howard to use one of his concussion grenades to clear the hall behind the front door. The resulting bang was enough to rattle their teeth, but those inside fared worse. Gray was first through the door and found two men collapsed on the floor, holding their ears. He took care of one while Sonny dealt with the other, then scanned the reception area for a way to the station’s holding cells. They found two doors, one to the left made of plain brown wood, while the other, straight ahead, had bars set into the glass. Gray signalled for Smart and Howard to clear the former while he slung his rifle in favour of his handgun and headed for the latter with Sonny.

  He swung it open as a figure emerged from a side room and let off a volley with an AK-47. Gray’s weapon quickly barked in reply, and he watched the man stagger backwards and collapse in the hallway.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Gray turned at the sound of Sonny’s voice and saw his friend clutching his left shoulder.