by Larry Bond
Which of course would be where he’d aim it.
Ferguson walked back and forth between the positions, his body racing with adrenaline. He had reloaded the shotgun with nonlethal shot and slung it over his shoulder with the submachine gun, both weapons ready. Conners took the safety position, deep in the backfield. He had a Minimi M249 machine gun with a two-hundred round belt — anyone who made it past the others wasn’t staying alive very long. While small for a machine gun, the weapon weighed fifteen pounds empty and without its scope, and having lugged it this far, Conners would just as soon use it.
The men used various ploys to stay awake, biting lips, rocking, thinking about how cold they were. Ferguson was mostly worried about Guns and kept checking on him, but the Marine had endured worse in boot camp, or at least was thoroughly convinced that he had. The memory of getting through that — along with the fear that he might let his friends down or, even worse, disgrace the Corps — was more than enough to keep him alert.
A little past five, they heard a helicopter in the distance. Each man stretched his arms and legs, then fell into position — Guns propping himself against a tree, Conners and Rankin on one knee, Ferg standing and watching. The sound grew, but then faded.
The hills remained silent for another half hour. This time the low drone came from trucks and tanks, a column moving along a road.
“Five of ‘em,” said Conners over the com set. “Two tanks at least. Trucks, personnel carriers.”
“What’d they have for breakfast?” asked Ferg.
Conners was still trying to think of a smart-alecky comeback when the heavy whomp of helicopter gunships began shaking the ground. They were flying in from the northwest, crossing from the team’s left, almost over their shoulders.
It was still dark, but with his night goggles Ferg watched the six smudges in double echelon roar toward the fortress. They were Ka-50s, single-seat attack birds powered by a pair of counterrotating rotors and armed with rockets and a monster cannon. They swung into an attack on the other side of the hill, launching rockets at the east and west sides of the encampment. One of the first rounds caught something flammable, and a series of secondary explosions began shaking the ground.
“Be ready,” said Ferg.
The onslaught moved to the front door of the fortress, rockets and cannons blasting the rocks and caves that looked down in the direction of the town. As one of the helicopters started away, a shrill zip sounded from the other side of the hill; a shoulder-launched missile veered upward and caught it on the side. Its fellows moved in for revenge, and at roughly the same time the tanks began to pound the caves, firing point-blank into the mountain.
“Be ready,” said Ferg again.
But nothing happened on their side of the fort. An hour after the attack had begun, the gunfire began to ease off. It was impossible to know what was going on from where they were, but it seemed unlikely that the Russians had made much of a dent in the rocks. A half hour later, two jets appeared; one of their bombs struck near the top of the hill over the cave, sending dirt far enough to dust Guns’s face.
“Fucking bastards. We’re going to have to go in there and get him ourselves,” said Rankin.
Ferguson’s real fear was that the Russians would try flanking the cave network and stumble across the Americans. Van Buren had raised the possibility earlier, pointing out that he didn’t have a large enough force to protect the flanks, but had reluctantly agreed when Ferg said bringing more men in — and waiting the day or two it would take to do so — presented other problems. It had been Ferguson’s call in the end, and he’d opted for surprise and quickness.
“Movement,” said Guns.
Everybody pushed forward a half step, weapons ready.
“Two, three men. First has a gun, the third,” said Guns.
“Guy in the middle,” said Rankin, who could see them from about twenty yards. “He’s short.”
“No, they’re all scouts,” said Ferg. “Hold on.”
“Going for the hide,” said Rankin.
“Hang tight.”
“Something else,” said Guns. “More people in the cave.”
“I got these three guys covered,” said Rankin.
Two more men came from the entrance to the cave. One was very much shorter than the other, stooped a little.
“The midget in the second group,” said Ferg. “Rankin?”
“Yup.” He shifted to his left — he didn’t have a shot on the target group, and the first trio was almost at the hide.
“Guns, get the grenade ready,” said Ferguson, seeing the two men now below them.
One of the trio that had come out first started shouting. A moment later someone in the cave began firing an automatic rifle toward Rankin. Guns fired the grenade into the cave, then tripped the charges. As the hillside shook, he put a grenade into the pile of rocks Rankin had pointed out. Dust and dirt flew everywhere. He launched another, then lost his balance as the rocks clattered down the hill in a roar.
Rankin still couldn’t see the target pair. He dashed down the hill toward the crevice, trying to get close enough to fire the net grenade. Bullets ricocheted all around him, the air humming with automatic weapons fire. Losing his balance, he slid down, falling on a direct line to the mouth of the cave, which was obscured behind a cloud of dust and rocks. He steadied the launcher but couldn’t find a target.
Ferguson pushed his submachine gun up and emptied the clip into the three figures who had come out first. By the time the last of the three men fell to the ground, rocks were sliding down the hillside.
Rankin cursed into the com set — he couldn’t find Kiro.
Ferguson pulled up the Remington, realizing that the terrorist had somehow managed to get beyond Rankin, possibly by climbing up the embankment. As he started to move toward the shallow ravine, he lost his footing. The slide saved him — one of the Chechen guerrillas had popped up on the slope directly across from him and begun firing. Ferguson scraped his fingers to hell as he fired back, the rubber slug slapping his target with a thud.
Ferg jumped to his feet and fired twice more, crazy with adrenaline now. He took a few hard shots to his chest before he had a target; he saw legs and fired the shotgun point-blank at the man’s face. His target howled and fell down. Ferg reached to grab him, then saw the other man climbing the rocks at his left to get away. He raised his gun and fired but either missed or didn’t do enough damage to stop him. Ferg fired again, then started after him, running and shooting until his gun was empty. He threw down the weapon and kept going, closing the distance to five yards before the man whirled.
He had a pistol in his hand. Part of Ferg’s brain saw the weapon and tried to tell his body to duck away; the rest missed it entirely. One of the bullets landed hard against the top of his body armor, but Ferg didn’t feel it — he’d already launched himself into the man’s midsection, tackling him against the stones. His right hand fished for the man’s neck and found a knife blade instead. Ferguson swung around, pinning his opponent and smacking his head back at the same time.
There was a flash, and Ferguson felt his head slammed to the side. Rankin had caught up and nailed them both with the net.
Ferguson, his back caught in the netting, saw the shadow of his assailant in front of him. He punched at it; the knife clattered away, and the Chechen, already stunned by the flash-bang, fell senseless. Ferguson stood up, pushing against the Teflon material of the net.
“Looks like you caught dinner,” he said to Rankin, who had his Uzi practically in Ferg’s face.
“This better be him.”
“There was one back on the lip of the ravine,” said Ferguson.
“I got him,” said Guns. He’d had to put a burst from the MP-5 into the man’s head when the bastard reached for his gun.
Conners and Rankin helped Ferguson out of the netting, then pulled the other man out and trussed him with handcuffs that looked like twists for Hefty garbage bags.
“Kiro,” said
Conners, shining a flashlight in his face. “Yeah, that’s the bastard.”
“Take his picture so we can upload it to Corrigan and make sure,” said Ferg, handing the small digital camera to Rankin. As he ran back and grabbed his shotgun, something exploded at the top of the hill; Ferguson heard the heavy thump of the helicopters and started shouting to the others.
“Go, let’s go! Go!” he repeated, over and over.
Conners carried the Chechen over his back like a sack of potatoes. He started to slide him onto the seat of one of the bikes behind Guns, but Ferg stopped him. The CIA officer jabbed two syringes of Demerol into the terrorist’s rear, counting on the synthetic narcotic to keep him dazed for a while. Then he pushed him onto the bike, holding it while Conners got on at the rear. It was a tight squeeze, but it beat walking.
The helicopters were taking turns pounding the front of the fort and circling nearby. There was a chance they would see the bikes as they headed into the forest, but once they were in the trees, the choppers would have a hard time pursuing them.
“Do it,” said Ferguson over the com set.
Guns stalled the bike, then kicked three times before it started again. This time they jerked forward, nearly falling over but finally gaining their balance.
Something exploded behind them. Conners heard the roar of the helicopter and leaned his head into his prisoner’s shoulder, waiting for the cannon shells to tear them apart. They were nearly a mile away before he realized they were going to make it.
13
CHECHNYA — LATER THAT DAY
The prisoner’s moans weren’t enough to match his voiceprints, but Ferg decided they’d keep the bastard incapacitated with the Demerol rather than trying to get him to say something coherent over the sat phone. The visual image was a match at least, and as far as he was concerned, that was good enough. According to Corrigan, the Russians were telling headquarters that they had completely obliterated the guerrilla stronghold. Sixteen Chechens had been killed. The attackers had suffered three fatalities and five wounded.
The skies overhead were filled with Russian aircraft, complicating the team’s escape plans. They were about fifteen miles southwest of the cave complex, holed up in rocks with a good view of the valley to the west, all the way to the east-west train line to Georgia. There was an airstrip about three miles to the south where they had originally planned their pickup, but Van Buren had put the operation temporarily on hold. The Russians had put some Hinds there, along with supporting troops.
“Shouldn’t have pissed them off, huh?” Ferguson told him.
“Guess not.”
“It was an old car. Could have used a wash and wax.”
“So you saved him money.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re working on finding a better site,” the SF colonel told Ferguson. “But the Russians are watching the main airports pretty closely. We may end up going to a backup plan, maybe getting a pair of helicopters.”
“We’re not particular,” said Ferg. “Just get us the hell out of here.”
“It’s safer for you to sit and wait. Only be a few days.”
“I don’t like waiting around, VB.”
“Neither do I.” Van Buren sighed on the other end of the line. “Corrigan says there’s a car for you at Narzan. Some CIA ops drove it down from Moscow in case you needed it. Fully fueled and everything.”
“Yeah, he already told me. But that’s seventy-five kilometers away. We might just as well walk to Georgia.”
“Your call.”
Ferguson snapped off the phone without saying anything else.
“Maybe we can take the bikes and swing up to the train line west of Groznyy,” said Conners, who’d been listening nearby. “Ride it all the way to Moscow.”
“There’s an idea,” said Rankin sarcastically.
“I’m serious,” said Conners. “Once we’re in the car, we can get pretty far. I’ve been looking at the maps, Ferg. Turn on the laptop.”
Ferguson humored him, though he realized it would be far safer to wait there than try and hop a freight. A train line did run north out of Chechnya, and Conners showed Ferg from sat photos that it wasn’t well guarded beyond Groznyy heading north.
“We need two spots to get on,” said Conners. “Nice grade with a curve would be perfect. Two guys get on, blow a lock off a boxcar, climb in, dump out shit, get the door open, make it easy to throw raghead over there in.”
“What, you saw this in a dream?” asked Ferguson, impressed.
“We used to hop trains all the time when I was a kid. Rode one up from Jersey to Ramapo up in New York once, caught another back. Be like old times.”
“Patrol,” warned Guns, who had the lookout. “Trucks, a BMP.”
Ferguson went to the edge of the mountainside overlooking the road. He could see the Russians moving in a small caravan southward. Suddenly a white cloud appeared near the lead vehicle.
“Great,” said Ferguson. “Just what we need.”
They watched as a group of Chechen rebels picked off the Russian patrol from a hillside about a mile and a half away. By the time a pair of helicopter gunships arrived to assist the ground troops, it was too late; three of their trucks had been destroyed, probably by radio charges planted in the road though the rebels had also used rockets and possibly grenades.
“Nice little operation,” said Rankin, genuinely admiring it.
“That’ll take the heat off,” said Guns.
“All right boys, saddle up,” said Ferg. “Narzan’s about fifty miles away. We have a car waiting for us. We walk fast, we can make it in two nights.”
* * *
It was in fact less than fifty miles to the Chechen city, which sat west of Groznyy on the main east-west highway in central Chechnya, but they couldn’t travel in a straight line. They took turns carrying their prisoner on a makeshift stretcher, trekking over trails that roughly paralleled what passed for the main road west.
After about three hours of walking, they came to a small settlement at the intersection of three different mountains. They’d gone about five miles at that point — fantastic time considering the terrain — but the village stopped them cold. There were a dozen buildings scattered along the main road, which was more a trail than a highway. Rankin and Ferguson scouted the approach and saw two sentries in sandbagged positions next to barricades that blocked the way. They were Chechen guerrillas.
Given the topography, there were dozens if not hundreds of spots where reinforcements might be lurking. If not for their prisoner, they might have been able to work a deal with the rebels. Instead, they had to find a way to skirt the tiny village; it was nearly light before they managed to get beyond it by crossing a field to the east and climbing a fifty-foot sheer wall. They pulled Kiro up by a rope, slipping and sliding, until they found their way to a cave about two miles southeast of the hamlet.
They were so tired that they all actually slept.
* * *
The first two miles the next night were not only uphill, but were very uphill — they climbed five hundred meters within a half mile on a remarkably wide path. From the satellite photos, they knew that there was a farm in a high valley on the other side of the ridge; when they arrived there they found a small cart with rickety wheels parked next to a shed. Ferguson’s conscience pricked at him when he stole it, and he left an assortment of small bills in its place. The money might be a fortune to the poor farmer — or it might be completely useless in this isolated spot, sure to raise questions if he dared spend it.
The cart made it possible to go much faster on the road. Within an hour they had come to another farm, this one obviously belonging to someone much more prosperous — there was a truck next to a shed near the barn.
“I say we steal it,” said Rankin.
“You think you can hot-wire it?” Ferguson asked him.
“I can,” said Conners. “If it’s old enough.”
They sneaked into the yard, Guns and Rankin standing gu
ard between the house and shed as Conners worked open the hood. The truck was an old Zil based on a Western European design that probably dated to the fifties. Conners lifted the hood and hunted for the ignition coil and starting solenoid, trying to get a feel for the wiring. He had just found the coil when the engine rumbled. Startled, he jerked his head up and smacked it against the hood.
“Keys are in it,” said Ferg.
A light came on in the house as they were backing out. Rankin fired a burst from the Uzi at the side of the building, and the warning was enough to slow down whoever was inside.
Ferguson changed plans, and with the help of the satellite photos they were able to get within sight of Gora Tebulsikva on the border with Georgia several hours before dawn. They left the truck outside the town, continuing by foot to the southwest, where the hills were rutted with paths. The Russians had fenced the border with two rows of razor-wire fence and a series of guard posts, but Ferguson figured it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a passage.
He took out his phone and sat down to call Corrigan, whom he’d promised to update every hour when they were on the move.
As he was talking, Kiro woke and began struggling against his restraints. They were out of Demerol. Guns tried talking to him in Russian, but he pretended not to understand. The Marine offered him food, but Kiro refused, continuing to struggle though he must have realized it was useless. Rankin put his Uzi in his face; Kiro smiled but continued to straggle until a hard smack on the side of the head with the short but hard metal stock rendered him senseless.
As they rolled him over to make sure his restraints were still snug, Conners noticed that the prisoner’s pants were soiled. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the bastard, but it quickly passed.
“The good news is, the helicopter will meet us in the pass five miles on the other side,” Ferguson told them, snapping off his phone. “The bad news is the asshole they set up to pick us up ran off with a better-paying customer, and they’re not coming until tomorrow night.”