by Ross Sidor
1:34. There were three more rooms on the third floor, each behind a heavy steel door, and Avery stopped at each one. One room was a storage space, the other a kitchen with a lounge area. The room that Cramer and the Russians had fled from was a large office space with desks and computers. All of them were deserted.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Avery kicked open the door that Cramer and Litvin had disappeared behind, and found himself staring into the cold exterior night, and felt the air blowing against his face. He cleared the threshold and stepped outside onto a narrow, rickety catwalk that extended twelve feet through the air, thirty-five feet off the ground, to a connecting platform on the mixing tower.
Cramer and Litvin were abandoning ship and going for the Kamov, Avery realized.
He followed his SOCOM pistol across the catwalk, his boots clapping against the metal surface. There was sufficient exterior lighting that his eyes’ photoreceptors acclimated quickly to the night. He heard the rattling crackle of AK fire coming nearby, but it wasn’t directed toward him.
Halfway to the platform, in the shadows, Avery discerned a figure crouched over the handrail at the edge of the platform, firing his AK-12 off into the hills where Reaper was positioned. The shooter faced away from Avery and was so focused on finding the sniper that he was completely oblivious to the movement on the catwalk and anything else taking place around him.
Another man lay sprawled four feet from the shooter. Blood dripped from beneath the destroyed head and through the small square spaces in the platform’s gridded surface. Reaper had managed to get at least one of them.
Avery glanced upward.
Above, on the next platform up, Cramer, Litvin, and another spetsnaz escort continued working their way up the tower, climbing the narrow ladder to the next scaffolding. The spetsnaz shooter stayed behind on the scaffolding and covered Cramer and Litvin with his AK-12 as they scurried up the next ladder. Once they reached the top, the spetsnaz shooter turned and swiftly and effortlessly scaled the ladder to catch up to them.
The next platform above them was at the top of the tower and supported the Ka-226.
Avery stepped off the catwalk onto the platform. He kept against the cylindrical curve of the tower, following its contour.
Eight feet way, the first Russian shooter, who had been engaging Reaper, fired another burst toward Reaper’s position in the hills. The clattering of his rifle masked Avery’s approach. After letting off one last burst, the Russian sprung onto his feet and ran around to the other side of the tower, to the ladder, eager to make it to the helicopter with the others and not be left behind.
Avery came around the tower in the opposite direction and met the Russian face-on as the man turned the bend. The Russian stopped dead in his tracks, surprised, as if Avery had just materialized in front of him out of nowhere. Avery shot him twice in his armored chest and then reached out and pushed him out of the way. The Russian flipped over the handrail and plummeted to the ground, where he broke his neck on impact.
Avery took the SOCOM pistol into his left hand, grabbed onto the eight-foot tall ladder with his right, and hauled himself up, his movements becoming sluggish and slow, uncoordinated. He became increasingly dizzy and lightheaded, telling him his brain wasn’t getting enough blood. He focused on his breathing, taking deep, slow breaths, in and out.
Nearing the next level of the tower, Avery heard the Kamov’s twin turbines and coaxial rotors power up, encouraging him to pick up the pace, but his body felt too weak and very heavy. He ignored the pain and forced himself up the ladder. He didn’t know what he could do to stop that helicopter from taking off, but there was no way he was going to allow Cramer to get away again.
Reaching the top of the ladder, as he stood up, Avery lost his footing on the last rung and stumbled forward onto the platform, landing on his chin, splitting it open, dazing him, and nearly knocking him out right then and there.
He rolled over onto his back. Staring up the ten feet length of the next ladder, he saw Cramer looking down at him from over the ledge of the next platform. He expected Cramer to alert the others, expected a Russian to point his rifle down at him and hose him full 5.45mm. But Cramer never said a word. Holding eye contact with Avery, expressionless, he shook his head once and then turned away.
Sparing the life of a former friend, or something else, Avery didn’t know, but it was Cramer’s mistake.
Five feet to his right, Avery saw the bodies of the two Uzbek guards Reaper had sniped when the team first arrived on-site. He saw the RPG-7s leaning upright against the handrail, the bulbous heads indicating they were armed and ready to go.
Avery worked his way back onto his feet, and dragged his weight forward to the edge of the platform, unable to move fast enough. He felt cold and feint. He thought he must have lost a lot of blood, though he didn’t think his brachial artery was hit. If it had, he wouldn’t have made it this far. At the moment, he didn’t care either way, as long as he had enough life left in him to see this through.
He jammed the SOCOM pistol into its holster and snatched up one of the RPGs, surprised at how heavy it felt. He threw the launcher’s sling over his head and left shoulder, with the launch tube lying vertical across his back. He lumbered across the scaffolding to the ladder, grabbed onto it with his right hand, allowing his left arm to hang at his side. Gasping for air, he painfully hoisted himself up, one rung at a time, fighting against the helicopter’s rotor wash, which blotted out all sound around him.
At the top of the ladder, he pulled his weight onto the platform and fell over onto his side. Landing on his left arm, he felt the sting of the bullet fragments compressed beneath his weight. He rolled over, came up on all fours, and then propped himself up onto one knee.
The helicopter lifted, two hundred feet overhead now, steadily gaining altitude.
Avery struggled with the fourteen pound, four foot long rocket launcher. He took three sluggish tries before finally getting the RPG into position, with the wooden heat shield set on his shoulder.
He’d never fired the RPG-7 before, but he thought it couldn’t be too damned difficult, if every amateur Third World terrorist, insurgent, and pirate were capable. He thought this should be an easy target, long as he didn’t pass out before he took the shot.
Looking through the optical sight, he angled the launcher skyward, fought to hold it still. He acquired the helicopter as it arced around, turning into the west, presenting its tail rotor to him. He fought to keep the tiny red dot centered over the moving target, and he hesitated, wanting to make sure the target stayed in his sights and that he didn’t waste the shot.
Finally, he hit the trigger.
The RPG bucked in his hands, and he felt the heat of the back blast when the launcher’s booster ignited the gases and shot the high explosive anti-tank rocket out of the tube at nearly four hundred feet per second.
Unable to support the launcher’s weight a second longer, reeling from the recoil, Avery’s left arm sagged. The launcher rolled from his grasp and clattered against the steel deck, rolled away from him.
He wouldn’t get a second shot.
His eyes followed the thick gray contrail of smoke through the sky and into the rear undercarriage of the helicopter, beneath the tail boom and between its rear wheels.
The HEAT warhead detonated on impact. Shards of searing, jagged metal shrapnel shredded the engine and fuel lines and ripped through the passenger pod, slicing, eviscerating, and burning anyone strapped inside, blowing out the glass of the cockpit and cabin windows.
The Ka-226 dipped, carried forward by its own momentum even as it lost altitude. Nose-first, it collided against the rocky hillside. Each blade snapped off against the ground in a shower of sparks as the rotor continued spinning around. The burning, smashed fuselage rolled down the hill, bouncing off boulders and smashing against crevices. When it finally came to a stop against a thick, steep outcropping of rocks seventy feet later, at the bottom of the hills, the Kamov resembled a burnt a
nd mangled aluminum can. Flames reached the ruptured fuel tank, kicking off a secondary explosion that engulfed the remains of the fuselage, and a dense column of black, oily smoke carried sixty meters into the sky.
At the sound of boots on metal rungs, someone else coming up the ladder, Avery spun fast around and drew the Mk 23 in his shaky right hand. He wasn’t ready for another fight, didn’t rate his chance of survival high.
He pointed the SOCOM pistol toward the top of the ladder.
His hands wavered, and his vision blurred.
A head rose over the edge of the platform, entering his sights.
But it was only Poacher.
Avery relaxed his finger over the trigger and dropped his weapon hand, letting it hang at his side.
“The site is secure,” Poacher said. He helped Avery onto his feet, noticing the gunshot wound. Poacher immediately searched his vest for gauze, disinfectant, and a roll of bandages.
“Where’s Aleksa?” Avery asked. “Did you find her?”
“Aleksa is safe. She’s with Flounder and M-Bird. She keeps asking about you. Reaper took a hit, but he’s okay. The render-safe team is en route to retrieve the HEU. Mockingbird is planting the beacons so the F-16s can hit this place after we exfil.” Poacher looked at the top of the drifting high tower of smoke, and his eyes followed it down to its source. “Nice shot.”
Avery didn’t speak as Poacher dressed his wound. Blood dribbled down the length of his forearm, off his fingertips, and collected in a puddle on the metal surface beneath his foot. He averted his gaze back to the wavering flames below.