EndWar: The Missing

by Tom Clancy

  Lex and his three men had been an outstanding team. There was no denying that. It was the end of an era, and Lex found himself rubbing his own eyes as a breath-robbing explosion struck outside, followed by a second, then a third as part of the ceiling on the far end of the cave began to collapse. He stared up, wondering how long they had until this part of the tunnel gave way . . .

  He tucked himself in beside Vlad and said, “Hang tight, Sergeant. We’ll get out of here in a minute.”

  Vlad nodded. “Goddamn Slava had to go and die on us, you know? Son of a bitch . . .”

  “I know.”

  “He was so hard-core he couldn’t admit he was just a guy who could bleed out like anyone else. And now he bought it. The toughest mother I ever met. So where does that leave us?”

  Lex hardened his tone. “That leaves us here . . . to bring him home.”

  * * *

  Halverson should have grinned over the awe-inspiring AIM-9X missile strikes delivered from her wingtips with deadly precision.

  The Cockroaches were exploding one after another as though they’d been rigged from the ground. Infrared emissions were detected and armor was penetrated in an unstoppable death blow. Any pyro junkie would’ve received her fix and then some as half the mountainside grew alive with dancing flames fighting to shine up through all the dust.

  However, news that the team had failed to recover Dr. Ragland was just . . . devastating. She wanted more answers—was her friend Ragland still missing? Was she dead? Had the Spetsnaz managed to smuggle her out before the attack?

  Wincing in frustration, she banked hard right, coming around for the next pass, this time taking advantage of the jet’s VTOL capability to hover in midair like a helicopter. The big flip-top lid covering the vertical thrust fan behind the cockpit rose like a wing flap. She neared the Cockroaches, slowed, then hovered as their shocked crews maneuvered guns toward the insane pilot who’d presented her aircraft on a silver platter.

  But that was hardly the case. She opened up with her GAU-12 twenty-five-millimeter cannon mounted in its external pod, targeting the driver’s cupola along with the housing around each fifty-seven-millimeter gun, knowing those areas were the weakest parts of the IFVs. She put 50 of the 220 rounds she carried on the first Cockroach and then broke from the hover and thundered off, targeting the next one, noting that the first one’s guns had gone silent.

  This, as she’d told the ground team leader, was a surgical strike on the vehicles nearest the HQ entrance, keeping the Marine Raider team safe from blue-on-blue fire. The risk was all hers now, of course, and while she’d been firing at the first Cockroach, the second one had been homing in on her, radar alarms blaring, fifty-seven-millimeter rounds stitching only a few meters off her port side.

  She cut loose with a barrage of cannon fire now, even as she got on the radio: “Deep Raider Actual? Ten seconds to go!”

  “Roger that, Siren.”

  “All right,” she said breathlessly, jerking the stick and throttling up. “Get out of there!”

  Ignoring the new IFVs and BTRs that were racing past the burning and disabled vehicles, Halverson came back around once more, zooming in with her cameras to see if she could spot the Marines.

  There they were in a small cart, dressed like Spetsnaz troops, one at the wheel, two in the back, their IDs floating over the image as blue triangles. They might very well go unnoticed among all those other dismounts. It was pucker-up time for them. And her.

  A report came in from their E-2 Hawkeye airborne early-warning command-and-control aircraft. They were out of time. The T-50s were already engaging the squadrons from long range, the sky now alive with so much missile fire that Halverson throttled up and dove straight down, into the smoke, coming within fifty meters of the ground, roaring across the massive craters and sections of upheaved earth lying across the tattered comm ditches and guard towers smashed apart as though constructed of coat hangers and duct tape. It was a surreal graveyard, all right, excavated by titanium and tenacity, and she was about to become its next resident if she couldn’t shake the two missiles that had just locked on.

  Of course, her Russian foes had sent only the best:

  The AA-11 Archer R-73 was the premiere short-range air-to-air missile in the Federation’s arsenal and could engage targets maneuvering with g-forces up to 12. It could intercept a target from any direction, under any weather conditions, day or night, in the presence of natural interference and deliberate jamming. She’d thought the dust would give those T-50 pilots more trouble than it had. Shit.

  Well, the crews aboard the carrier hadn’t loaded up her aft canisters with flares and chaff for nothing. She released the white-hot countermeasures, then dove toward the burning barracks and violently hit the brakes, slowing into a hover and rapid descent—just as the missiles took the bait and detonated behind her.

  She gasped—Jesus, too close—just as the next alarm beeped. They’d locked on again.

  Throttling up, she set free another burst of chaff and flares, then ascended, wheeling around the fort as an unexpected surprise lit her screens:

  She now had two Russian fighters on her own radar, range only three kilometers. Missiles locked. Even as she leveled off, her thumb flicked across the joystick.

  The AIM-120s ignited from the jet’s inner pylons and leapt away, leaving fire-lit contrails in their wake. They closed to self-homing distance, turned on their active radar seekers, and found their targets, a one-two punch whose explosions flashed across her canopy on either side.

  Adios, bitches.

  * * *

  Lex was barking orders in Russian at the men trying to put out the fires around the nearest Cockroach, waving a hand as though he were in charge: “Fall back inside the motor pool! More air strikes coming in! Evacuate the wounded back inside. The gas has cleared.”

  Meanwhile, he and Vlad did just the opposite. Lex steered the cart through the scattering personnel and across the burning fields of debris, following the road as it curved down the mountainside. Twice he nearly lost control of the cart as they rumbled down and up a depression created by the missile strikes.

  The rally point stood in a clearing about a click southwest of the entrance, a heliport with four pads used for dropping off supplies for the headquarters. The pallets were loaded aboard 6×6s and ferried up to the base. Two Seahawks were already en route there, and the Marines aboard would take out any troops manning the checkpoint and lone guard tower. They’d secure the heliport before Lex and his men arrived.

  He needed to believe that.

  There was no Plan B at this point, save for evacuating back into the mountains, where they could become a midnight snack for the wolves.

  “Deep Raider Actual, this is Siren. Looks like you are clear to the rally point. I’ll check back on you momentarily, over.”

  “Roger that, Siren. Outstanding job back there!”

  “Just get home safe. Siren, out.”

  Lex tightened his grip on the wheel and glanced over his shoulder, where Slava was lying across the backseat. They’d used the big man’s belt to batten him down.

  The road grew much darker, but the cart was equipped with a pair of headlights that did a fair job of lighting the dirt road and exposing the ruts, now being draped in snow. They could already hear the idling choppers in the distance, and Lex lifted his voice and told Vlad, “Almost there!”

  At the moment, Borya had left his cover point near the air shafts and had found an alternate route down the mountain, coming in to the rally point from the northeast side. He could descend without the need for a rope, but his evac would be slower and more arduous. He’d called back the drone and was using it to scout his own path. They would link up at a grid point about halfway to the helipads.

  A flash in the sky—like a falling star—shone ahead, followed by a massive explosion of multiple fireballs rising from the trees in the dista
nce.

  “What the hell was that?” Vlad cried.

  Lex checked the map floating on his head-up display. “Holy shit. That was the rally point.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Raider Team Rally Point

  Helipads

  Fort Levski, Bulgaria

  The Snow Maiden had been running toward the helipads. She’d widened her eyes at the two Seahawks idling there, with the Goshawk just setting down to the rear when a brilliant flash enveloped the entire clearing.

  Squinting and feeling as though someone or something had just sucked all the air from the forest, she lifted a palm against the glare. The nearest chopper exploded in a fire-ringed blast just as the JSF Marines were storming out.

  The concussion struck her like a main battle tank, booting her several meters backward, into the air, the pressure across her chest feeling as though it might crush her ribs.

  She came crashing down just behind a tree as shredded parts of the chopper’s fuselage came cartwheeling into the forest, striking the tree directly in front of her, followed by the rotor blades, blown off and still slicing through the air. One of the blades thumped into the snow just a few meters to her right, while burning men were flung up into the branches to remain there, some dead, some screaming and writhing like grotesque Christmas tree ornaments.

  She rolled over and watched as the crew of the second Seahawk began evacuating the aircraft, its side windows and doors punctured by debris, the pilot and co-pilot falling to their knees, then collapsing right there in the snow.

  At the same time, the Goshawk lifted off, its tilt rotors delivering hurricane-force winds across the flaming devastation, with debris blowing wildly and the stench of fuel and burning electronics and flesh permeating the clearing as more Marines sought cover.

  Fighter jet engines resounded to the west—

  And then, just at the aircraft pitched up, it was struck by a missile and burst apart so loudly, the wave so powerful, that the Snow Maiden knew if she didn’t get down the debris field would tear her apart.

  She screamed through a curse and dove forward, burying her head against the tree and shielding her eyes.

  Then it came, a whoosh and hiss as though a thousand giant knives had been thrown simultaneously through the forest, slicing through leaves, branches, entire tree trunks, accompanied by the sounds of limbs being snapped off or crushed or creaking as they were bent back under the weight of flying wreckage.

  The detonation continued, like thunderheads before a rainstorm, the ground reverberating, the stench of jet fuel choking as more pieces of the aircraft sounded as though they were jackhammering across the helipad, hacking apart the asphalt.

  By the time the Snow Maiden lifted her head and stole a glimpse forward, the Goshawk was all but obscured by a skyscraper of blue-black smoke encompassed by bodies and jagged sections of wings and rotors rising like a postapocalyptic skyline.

  More jets streaked overhead, just as the deeper booming of AA guns came from the mountain and sharper cracks echoed down from above.

  She couldn’t wrap her thoughts around the moment. Could fate be this cruel? Had the universe been dangling her from a string all this time, only to dip her now into the eternal fires?

  This was the end of the line. These were the people who were supposed to save her. Yes, these Marines, lying here, bleeding and dying in the snow. These Marines burning up in the trees. She lost her breath and just sat there, turning her gaze to the sky and listening, searching for an angel shaped like a helicopter and whomping toward them. Nothing.

  And then, from behind, came the thin, high-pitched hum of a cart used back at the headquarters. She crawled toward the dirt road, got to her feet, then spotted the dim headlights approaching.

  As they drew closer, the knot in her gut tightened. They were Spetsnaz.

  * * *

  Lex called Borya and told him to head directly to the rally point. No midpoint rendezvous. He and Vlad needed to find out what the hell was happening down at the helipads and were high-tailing it there right now. At least two major explosions had come from that area, and he could only hope against terrible odds that their exfiltration team was okay. Moreover, that clearing represented the only good spot to land rotary aircraft, save for what was left of Fort Levski: the airfields unstable, the ground between the barracks tilled like farmers’ fields. Lex wasn’t sure they’d ever reach a secondary rally point in the cart. The thing would either run out of battery power or get stuck in the ice and snow. He was barely making it across the dirt and thinner sections of snow as it was.

  “Hold up, boss!” cried Vlad.

  The sergeant was wearing his own visor and scanning the woods to their right, his rifle coming up to his shoulder, his breath rising above him in the frigid air. “I got movement out there.”

  “I see it, too,” said Lex, climbing out of the cart and starting toward the edge of the road.

  Vlad arrived beside him, and they kept tight to the cart for cover.

  For a moment, they just narrowed their gazes and remained there, probing the darkness.

  Shouts in the distance, two smaller secondary explosions. More jets rushing unseen through the dust.

  “Anything?” he whispered to Vlad.

  The gunshot struck Vlad in the chest and knocked him away from the cart and flat onto his back.

  Lex had already jerked from the sound and was dropping to his knees.

  “Hit the plate, I’m okay,” Vlad cried. “Get the bastard!”

  Lex bolted away.

  It was an insane move, running toward a sniper, and his common sense finally caught up with his legs, so as he headed for the nearest tree to gain cover, he reached into his pocket and let fly one of the Seekers.

  * * *

  The Snow Maiden had no intention of allowing these Spetsnaz troops anywhere near the helipads and her possible escape route. She’d kill them first, but her shot had dropped, striking the first troop in the chest instead of the head, and the other one ducked and broke away before she could fire again.

  He was coming up fast behind her now, and she worried that with her battered knee she couldn’t outrun him or try to lose him in the forest before she confronted the Americans. She rushed toward the clearing and the fires blazing farther out like tribal torches beneath the thickening snow.

  She stole a look back and wished she hadn’t. He was gaining on her. One hell of a big troop wearing an odd pair of glasses.

  Willing herself into a calm, she came around the next tree and thought, All right. One last man to kill. Not a problem. It was just them being them. They wouldn’t leave her alone, right up to the last second when she surrendered to the Americans. This fool was just another of Kapalkin’s automatons. He wouldn’t stop her. He couldn’t. He’d lose his life because he’d bought into a lie about serving his country and living a better life.

  She almost lost her footing as something flashed in her face. She cursed. It was another of those micro UAVs come to harass her again. She swung futilely at the thing and steered herself between two more trees, just as the fuel tanks of the choppers caught fire and whooshed loudly across the circular tarmac. She was about to leap down to the asphalt from a ridge above but spun back at the sound of boots mashing into snow and pine needles, crunching across pinecones.

  She never saw his face, only the black uniform as he slammed on top of her, driving her into the ground with a terrible and unstoppable force, one hand already locking around her pistol, her head barely escaping impact with the ice.

  * * *

  “ID confirmed, boss,” cried Borya. “It’s her!”

  That voice in Lex’s ear sent a wave of adrenaline coiling up his spine.

  It was her. The Snow Maiden.

  Blinking hard, he straddled the woman, growling in Russian as he drove her wrists back toward the ground. “Just stand down, and I won’t kill you.” />
  She fought against his grip, knocking away his SAV glasses. He was, however, much heavier, using his weight to gain the advantage and pin her all the way down, knees on the outside of her legs, ankles on the inside.

  Her face creased in exertion, and he couldn’t help but admire how aggressively she fought back, no fear or anxiety or anything else—just animal instincts, it seemed.

  He got closer, studied her face, the deep lines, the short hair, and something much more interesting in her eyes, an image of a younger woman that took him aback and made her seem more human, unlike the horror stories he’d read.

  Suddenly, he found himself wanting to rescue her. He imagined that she needed him, that all the lies and the killing had caught up with her, and she needed more than just a troop. She needed a shoulder on which to rest her head, someone to listen to her, to understand her—

  And that made her achingly attractive.

  But this was how she operated, wasn’t it? She got you close. Made you want her. And then she slashed apart your arteries with her talons.

  With a half-strangled cry, she kneed him in the back, tugged one arm free, and launched him forward, over her head. He kept his grip on her weapon and ripped it from her hand. By the time he came around to face her, she already had another pistol trained on him.

  Standoff.

  “You want me alive,” she said. “They always do.”

  He snorted. “I wouldn’t assume anything.”

  She smirked, and then her gaze flicked to his SAV lying in the snow. She frowned and asked, “Who are you?”

  “The Spetsnaz don’t use those, do they?”