The helicopter stuttered in the air as the big gun reverberated and its stream of gas pushed against the tail. Fashona threw the Hind sideways, spinning around. As he did, Lia saw a tank or armored car moving near the bank of ZSUs she’d targeted earlier. She selected the Hellfires, locked, and fired.
“I thought we were saving the Hellfires until we’re sure they’re out of the building,” said Fashona as the vehicle exploded. “Otherwise you should’ve used them on the guns.”
“Just find Charlie, huh?”
“Troop truck, coming out of the barracks.” She selected the cannon, then stopped when she saw something else moving behind it.
“I’m on it — shit! Another armored car.”
“Hellfire the motherfucker.”
“What kind of language is that?” she asked, locking and launching the missile. “You can’t use Hellfire as a verb.”
48
As soon as Karr heard the Hind he shoved open the door. Two Russian Marines stood in awe about five yards away, staring in disbelief as the helicopter raked the compound with rocket and gunfire. Karr’s A-2 cracked twice and both men fell over as if they’d been sawed in half.
“Go! Martin! Go!” he yelled, moving out from the doorway. He did a quick turn, made sure the way was clear, then reached back and pulled the bewildered rescuee out from the door. He pushed Martin along the alley, then across the back to Building One. He got him down and glanced at the handheld display from the Bagel — the Russians and Charlie Dean had disappeared somewhere. One of the Zeus antiaircraft guns began firing from the far end of the base. Karr knew from the briefing that it wouldn’t be able to hit the Hind, but he also knew Fashona and Lia should have taken it out.
“Up the ladder, up the ladder!” he yelled to Martin. “Go! Go!”
Martin started to complain. He hadn’t put on his shoes, and his feet were cut and bleeding.
“Just get the fuck up now,” Karr said, grabbing his shirt and pushing him toward the ladder as two Russians came charging down the road. Karr leveled his gun and fired four bursts, missing with all as the men threw themselves to the ground. That was good enough for now, though — he jumped on the ladder and climbed up so quickly he nearly knocked Martin off at the top.
The compound rocked with gunfire, rockets, and secondary explosions. Karr saw one of the men he’d missed coming down the alley and fired another burst, cratering the man’s skull.
“Fashona!” he yelled as the helo whipped toward them. “We’re on the roof. Put down a line and haul Martin up.”
“Don’t have ropes,” said Fashona. “I got no crew, remember?”
“Fuck me.”
“I’d love to, honey, but you’re not my style.”
“Shit. I don’t trust this roof. Can you land in front of the building?”
“Yeah, if Lia can stop playing with the stinking cannon.”
The helicopter whipped around about twenty feet from them, tilting on its axis as the cannon on the right side of the fuselage roared. A truck at the far end of the compound caught fire.
“All right, I’m going to send Martin down. I’ll cover him from here, then go and get Dean.”
“We’ll cover him,” said Lia. “Get Dean and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Karr whirled around to Martin. “You gotta go back down the ladder. Helicopter’s coming for you.
“I–I can’t.”
“Yeah, man, you go now,” said Karr. He spotted a car moving down the road from the area of the SAMs. “Go! I’ll worry about the car.”
“What car?”
“Go,” said Karr. He pushed him toward the ladder, then burned the entire magazine — more than eighty bullets were left — tearing through the front end of the vehicle. By the time he was done, the remains would have fit in a coffee can.
He pulled out his handheld to look for Dean as he slammed in a new ammo box. Karr hit the Bagel’s control screen, pushing the small UAV closer toward the base. Then he went back out to the view screen and from there directed the computer to find the image he’d earlier associated with Dean. It took several long seconds; finally, the screen popped into map mode and a white box outlined three figures running toward the main gate.
The Hind swept in from behind him, shooting its cannon as it did.
“Lia! Watch out for Dean!” yelled Karr. “Don’t fire at the gate.”
“Where is he? I’m not getting a feed with the locator system.”
“He’s near the gate.”
As Karr looked down to update the position, the screen went blank.
49
The three bullets the Russian fired hit Dean almost square in the chest. It was a good thing — the NSA body armor not only kept them from penetrating but absorbed some of the impact as well, spreading it through its high-tech cells. Still, his breath drained from him and Dean curled with the pain, just on the edge of consciousness. Two of his ribs felt like they were broken, and when the Russians jerked him to his feet he stood there paralyzed, nearly in shock.
One of the Marines finally pushed him toward the gate. Dean stumbled forward, his head off-kilter. Though he knew it couldn’t be true, it seemed like six or seven helicopters were flying overhead, supporting a company of ground troops attacking from all sides. A dozen Russian Marines scattered in small knots on the other side of the fence, firing toward the surrounding tundra and nearby town, though Dean knew there wasn’t anything there.
Soon, very soon, the Russians were going to decide he was the cause of all this misery and take a little revenge. Dean tried to slide his hand in beneath his vest to get one of his hideaway guns, but his ribs screamed with pain. One of the Russians put his hand on Dean’s back and shoved. As he did, the Hind loomed above, a dark, angry cloud of gunfire. Smoke and dust whipped into the air. The fence, only a few yards away, erupted. The metal seemed to jump into the air. Dirt, rocks, cement chips, metal, gunpowder — the air became thick with debris. Dean dived to the ground. In the swirling tornado he grabbed his calf, fishing for the small Glock strapped there. By the time he found it, he was choking and couldn’t see. He rolled to his hands and knees and started crawling toward the helicopter.
He’d gone about five yards when he realized it wasn’t the helicopter, which was now somewhere overhead and firing again. Something moved on the ground to Dean’s left and he rolled again. An assault rifle started firing a few feet away from him — he could hear it but couldn’t see the muzzle flash.
Turning onto his left side, he began pushing himself through the dirt, away from the gun. By turns the night became green, then red, then yellow and purple. Shadows furled into immense balls of blackness, then disintegrated. The helicopter came back, skimming in toward what remained of the gate. Dean saw Karr running toward it. As Dean started to follow, he realized it wasn’t Karr but one of the Russians.
The Glock made a soft popping sound in his hand, and the recoil was so sweet he wasn’t entirely sure in the chaos that he had actually fired. He pressed the trigger again, and the man turned.
Dean threw himself to the ground, but the Russian didn’t fire at him. Dean pushed forward, swimming more than crawling. His hip burned; something had hit him there. He shook his head, trying to wave off the pain. He’d suffered far, far worse.
He had to get out of here soon, or the next thing that hit him would take his head off. But now where was the Hind?
The thing to do, the only thing to do, was get to a clear open space and wait. They would come and get him. They would.
They were kids, but they would come and get him.
Shit. What he really needed was a company of Marines.
He’d settle for a squad. Shit, one guy, Bill Wiley maybe, humping over the fence.
Thirty years ago, maybe. Not now, not here. This wasn’t a Marine show. For better or worse, this was the kids’ game.
For worse, definitely worse. They were blowing it big-time. Them and their high-tech bullshit toys.
But wasn’t it h
is fault for going ahead with a bullshit plan? He knew it was bullshit and had said so.
Like Vietnam.
Either everybody around him was dead or they were pretending to be. Dean reached as gingerly as he could beneath his vest for the other Glock. Holding one in each hand, he started walking toward the main road, trying to sort out the battlefield. The buildings were almost dead ahead, the SAMs and flak dealers up to the right, out of view, though he assumed they were the source of the flames and black smoke curling through the flare-lit haze. Behind him were the barracks. He could hear vehicles coming from that direction, or at least thought he did.
Maybe get to the buildings, out on the roof, above all of this shit where they could see him.
So what happened to the stinking locator thing, huh? Where’s my beacon to beam me back aboard the mother ship?
As he started across the road toward the buildings, Dean felt the ground rumble. He looked to his left and saw something crashing through what was left of the main gate.
It was a BMP, a tracked armored personnel carrier with a cannon and a machine gun, one of the vehicles that had left earlier to check out the diversions. One of the guns atop the vehicle began firing. Dean dived into the dirt, diving, diving, diving, swimming down, and cursing himself for being a fool, for being a hero, for being here at all.
Then the ground spit him up. A volcano erupted where the gun had been. Tossed in the air by an explosion, Dean found himself diving into the dirt near the building where he’d originally been captured.
“All this time, you haven’t moved like two feet,” shouted a voice in his ears.
Where?
“Up! Up!”
Dean looked up and saw the ladder at the side of the building. He grabbed it, started to climb.
“They’re coming.”
Four loud explosions pushed him upward. Dean knew it was Karr, knew the explosions must be the NSA op’s A-2 firing, but couldn’t see anything except the suddenly grimy night in front of him. One of his eyes had welded itself shut, and the other was half-blinded by the flash from the BMP’s explosion. He climbed as best he could, diving onto the roof and belatedly realizing he ought to make sure it was still there.
It was. He got up and went back to help Karr. But the NSA op didn’t need any help — he kicked his feet over the top of the roof, saw Dean, and grinned. Then he whirled back and worked his A-2 like a drill hammer, smacking the reinforcements that had been following the BMP.
When the loud crack of the A-2 stopped, Karr threw down the gun and turned back toward Dean. The roof had started to shake. The Hind loomed over the side of the building, materializing like a train in thick fog.
Dean reached for the door — it was folded open — but then saw he’d never get it. Instead, he wrapped his arm between the two struts of the landing gear on the right side, barely holding on as the Hind whipped sideways off the roof. He turned to look back to Karr, but something kicked him in the side — the kid was dangling on the other strut.
The helicopter dipped down and the air around it seemed to catch on fire. Rockets leaped from the pod on the winglet, so close the exhaust burned Dean’s cheeks. He knew he was letting go; he knew he was dead. He felt his soul looping around, spiraling toward heaven.
Then he was sprawled on the ground.
Karr laughed at him, picked him up, and settled him into the chopper, almost gently.
“Not bad for a geezer,” Karr shouted. “You’re doing OK, baby-sitter. You’re doing OK.”
50
Rubens strapped himself into the seat as the helicopter’s blades whipped into a frenzy. The Sikorsky — a civilian version of the Blackhawk — was detailed to Admiral Brown, who was sitting across the aisle checking his “clean” or unsecure E-mail. It tipped forward and pulled into the sky, headed back to Crypto City.
Rubens had gotten what he wanted — complete operational control of the mission. It was an important victory, even a historic one. But it did have certain risks. The CIA could be counted on to harp on any failure. Blanders was definitely on the road to becoming an ally, but he still had axes to grind, especially on this. And as covert operations of any nature always carried with them a high potential for failure, there was an enormous downside.
But this was what Desk Three had been established to do. This was the direction they’d been heading in all along. This was the way wars would be fought in the future. Collins was simply a distraction.
Rubens had boxed her out fairly well, actually. But she would no doubt return another day.
The Russian president was going to owe his life to William Rubens when this was all over. What a deliciously ironic thought.
The most pressing order of business now was to finger the coup leader. Bib and his people had to do better. Had to.
Rubens took out his own small computer and pulled up the E-mail program. He’d be spending all his time over the next few days in the Art Room; best to get the routine driftwood squared away. He’d have to run out to his house, button it up for an extended absence.
No time. Use the phone program. That’s what it was there for.
Karr and his people — he needed them in Moscow. He shouldn’t have let Karr stay out in Siberia to look for Martin.
Good God, he’d completely forgotten about Martin!
Panic overtook him for a moment. What was it Pound had said in the Cantos? “I am not a demigod — I can’t make it cohere.”
Rubens took a breath. Of course he could make it cohere. This was why he wasn’t in banking or lounging around some silver beach in the Caribbean. This was the highest intellectual pursuit possible. He was master of the most powerful forces in the most powerful nation in the history of the world.
Pound was a schizophrenic anti-Semite and no one read his goddamn poetry anyway.
“It went very well,” said Brown. “A historic moment.”
“Yes.”
“I expect Central Intelligence will be out to scuttle us. That Collins — she seems to have it in for you. There’s a history there?”
“Yes,” said Rubens, trying to make his voice sound noncommittal. “She was with the Special Collection Service.”
“She ran it, didn’t she?”
“A few years ago — before your time.”
“And she would have preferred if Desk Three were set up the same way, with a CIA officer in charge. Preferably her,” said Brown. Then he added, “There is a personal element as well.”
Rubens smiled before answering. He was starting to actually like his boss, or at least believe him competent.
“I think Ms. Collins is professional enough to overcome any personal difficulties when dealing with situations as they develop,” Rubens told him.
“Nice answer,” Brown said. “We’ll hold them off. I expect the DDO will end up working for you.”
“She’d quit first.”
They fell silent for a moment.
“The hearings into Congressman Greene’s death are set to begin next week,” Brown said after checking through a few more notes on his handheld.
“Yes.”
“They won’t interfere with this.” Brown said it as a statement, not a question.
“Certainly not,” said Rubens.
“I assume you’re doing a little checking into the situation.”
Was it a trap? The death of a puny congressman — what was that next to this operation?
Or did Brown think Rubens was somehow responsible?
Preposterous.
Though of course if he had truly wanted Greene dead, well, then he could accomplish it, surely.
“I have been, well, somewhat busy with this,” said Rubens noncommittally.
When Brown didn’t say anything else, Rubens decided to change the subject. He hadn’t had a chance — more accurately, he hadn’t taken the opportunity — to inform the admiral that Martin might still be alive. He did so now.
“I thought we were sure he and others died,” Brown said.
; “Reasonably sure,” said Rubens. To him this was a major distinction, though the admiral frowned. “But we picked up a voice and we’re looking into it. If he is alive, we’ll try and recover him.”
Brown’s brow knotted. The compartmentalization of the agency and the operating rules for Desk Three gave Rubens the authority to proceed on the mission without informing Brown; nonetheless, the admiral’s expression made it clear he would have preferred an earlier update.
“Can we get him back?”
“Certainly. If it’s him,” said Rubens.
“He’ll have compromised Wave Three,” said Brown.
“To some extent,” admitted Rubens. “We had already begun to revise the program as a precaution, however. One way or another, we have to assume it was compromised.”
“Powers survived the U-2 hit,” said Brown. “Despite everything.”
He was referring to the infamous shootdown of a U-2 flown by Gary Powers on May 1, 1960. According to agency lore, the U-2 (which was part of a CIA program at the time doing NSA work under the Green Hornet program, which captured radio and signal intelligence) had been rigged with explosive gear that was supposed to make it impossible to survive a bailout.
“We’ll debrief him thoroughly,” said Rubens. “If it’s him.”
Brown nodded, though it seemed a very reluctant gesture.
51
By the time they reached their destination on the bank of the Ob River, the sun had started to rise. Dean sat curled over the back of the Hind’s seat the whole time, sunk deep into sore fatigue. He’d loosened his bullet-proof vest to take some of the pressure off his bruised ribs, but didn’t bother looking at his hip; it hurt enough already.
Too old, too slow: Dean thought about what had happened in the compound. His body had done all right — his reactions had been slower certainly than when he was young, and he hurt a hell of a lot more, but overall he’d done all right.
What hadn’t done well was his head. For one thing, he hadn’t properly checked the roof coming out. Worse, his head had scrambled in the middle of the fight.
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