by L. J. Martin
I fire, just as both boats light up the morning again, but luckily for me, now into the first floor. I'm sure to their great surprise, the grenade explodes and rocks the boat badly and I swing to the second trawler and fire two more quickly.
Then I head for the stairway.
"Let's get the hell out of here," I yell to Pax, and he's up and right behind me as I hit the stairway.
As we hit the bottom floor, I can see that Hank is at the window with the Russian RPG, but the machine guns are starting to cut into the walls, and splinters are flying along with lead.
I see he's on target and I dive to the side to avoid the back-blast, and he does pull one off but then he too hits the floor.
"The cellar," I yell, and all of us head for a little door off the entry that leads down to where I've deposited Zak.
At least for the moment, we're out of the line of fire.
"Did you get one of those fuckers," I ask Hank as we hit the bottom, and he looks a little sheepish.
"I jerked away, splinters in the face, when they started cutting the building in half…and blew up the friggin' boathouse."
"At least you didn't take a round. Fifties, you think?"
"One fifty, one thirty maybe, hard to tell."
Pax is bleeding from his face and neck, and I give him a worried look.
"Splinters," he says, picking them out as he does.
"Two boat loads of fighters," I estimate. "Two machine guns. We need some help."
"Hog time?" Hank suggests.
"Give me coordinates," I ask, as I dial Chuck Holland.
He answers on the second ring. "Holland."
"Chuck, this is Mike Reardon. We need some support."
"You don't know?" Holland comes back.
"Know what?"
"She's free, on her way to Tallinn with some Estonian woman. What the hell's that?" he asks, and I have to shout in return.
"Automatic fire. We're in the place she was being held taking heavy fire."
He's silent for a moment. "Give me your location. I'll do a fly over. She's on her way out and I'm not firing on a friendly country, but I'll shake them up best I can."
I grit my teeth, but it's better than nothing. I give him our coordinates then, "Heavy fire coming from two fishing boats, flanking a boathouse two hundred yards east of the dacha we're in. Lake Piepus."
"I'm fifteen minutes out if balls out all the way, after I get in the cockpit. Can you hang on?"
"No choice."
And he's gone.
20
Hank is working on some boards on the side of the cellar room and knocks them away and, as he suspected, the dacha has a two foot crawl space beneath the first floor. We have the XM25 and the Russian RPG with us, and without even trading words, Hank and I are up, in, and bellying across the darkness, shoving spider webs and trash out of the way as we go, until we're at an opening on the wall facing the boats.
They've paused their fire, then I realize there are men moving into the forest, at least a half dozen, and see a couple of small tenders have landed on the shore. They've stormed the beach.
I bust away a couple of pieces of lattice crisscrossing the crawl-hole so it doesn't interfere with either the RPG or the XM25.
Hank is loading the RPG while I'm studying the situation, and he must see the concern cross my face.
"What?" he asks.
"Foot soldiers, and they move like this isn't their first rodeo."
"Let's take out the autos then we'll worry about the fuckheads with the AKs."
We're both far enough back in the darkness where we can't be seen, but only one of us can effectively utilize the crawlspace, and Hank's lining up for a shot.
"Fire in the hole," he says, and the roar of the RPG and its backwash rocks us both.
"Bulls fucking eye," he says, with a grin, as one of the fishing boats lifts its bow out of the water, and returns to begin slowly sinking, bow first.
But we're made as small arms fire begins chipping away at the opening. And we still have another machine gun to deal with. I drop even farther back into the darkness, and decide to give it all I've got, and range the XM25 and empty the magazine, firing five rounds.
As more small arms fire splinters the jambs of the crawl hole, I see the explosions all around the bow of the second boat. The result is not as dramatic as was that of the RPG, but I see two bodies being blown overboard, and the gun is suddenly silent.
"Back in the cellar," Hank yells, and I do the backward frog until I can drop to the relative safety of the room.
Now it's Pax who's looking worried.
"What?" I ask.
"Smoke, and it's not gun smoke. I think we're on fire."
"Son of a bitch," is all I can manage, and I start trying to figure a way out. I move to the stairway and see the floor above beginning to fill with smoke.
This shit is getting serious.
I noticed while in the crawl space under the house that there were accesses on all four sides of the dacha. And I turn to Hank and Pax. "Let's get in position," I check the iPhone for the time. "We've only got a couple of minutes before the fly by. While they're wondering if they're about to get carpet bombed, we'll break for the bikes. Pax and I out the south way, you two out the west. Let's divide up their targets."
"Let's hope," Pax yells, "they're too busy to find targets."
"How about this asshole," Hank says, motioning at Zak, who's tied hand and foot.
"Cut him loose. Can you make him understand that we're out first?"
"I can try," Hank says, and speaks to him in Russian as he's cutting the boot laces off his hands and feet, then Hank turns to me. "How about the others?"
"Two of them have bought it…I don't know about the third."
"I'll check." I say, wondering how wise it is to risk my neck so one of the pricks won't burn up. That might stick with me a while if I let any living human being get BBQ'd.
"I'm going too," Hank says. "I've got an idea."
"Keep that asshole here," I yell at Pax and Skip. "If we're not back at fly-by time, beat a trail."
"Just get back," Pax says and swings his Ingram to cover Zak.
I follow hank up and we pause until we're sure it's nothing but small arms fire, then charge up to the second floor. He's carrying the Russian RPG, and I'm wondering why as it seems both of their machine guns are out of commission.
But the trip seems to be for naught, as all three of them are dead. The room looks like a slaughter house.
"Grab on," Hank says, grabbing Vadim under an arm. I do, and help him drag the big Russian over to the window facing the lake. We set him up leaning against a ladder-back chair, and Hank positions the RPG across the window sill so it looks as if someone is readying it to fire. Small arms again chop at the jambs, and we run for the stairway and down as the bad guys waste ammo on their already dead buddy.
Just as we make the cellar, the whole place rocks with the fairly close fly by of the A10, who I imagine with this first one is just doing a recon.
"Let's go, next fly-by," I say, and I lead the way, Pax behind me, and Hank, saying something to the Russian, is close behind.
It's almost forty yards from the front of the dacha to the beginning of the forest, then another hundred to where we've hidden the bikes.
I kick out the lattice work over the crawl space, as Hank and Skip do the same at the west access, and we position ourselves for a quick exit.
Estimating the time it'll take Chuck Holland to make a wide sweeping turn and come back for another low pass. I count to twenty five, then say over my shoulder. "Let's empty our clips as soon as we catch fire from them. Don't stop until we're out of sight in the trees."
"Ten four," all of them say at once.
Then I cock my head, and even over the sporadic small arms fire, I can hear the approaching A10.
Then I can see him, coming from the south, and dropping so low I'm afraid he's going to take off the tree tops and the plane's undercarriage.
"Go!" I yell, and follow Pax out through the smashed lattice as the roar of the Hog occludes all else.
Now, it's forty yards of killing field.
21
If you've ever had a fifty thousand pound aircraft with a nearly sixty foot wingspan—wings lined with rockets and bombs—being pushed by two General Electric turbofans generating almost ten thousand pounds of thrust each, pass fifty feet overhead at four hundred, or more, miles per hour, you'll understand why all heads are down. In fact, all are hunting for a hole as their heads swim from rattle, roar, and shock.
And as I break from the south crawlspace with Hank on my tail, and as Pax and Skip break from the west one, I know we're all praying that these assholes with the AKs are trying to dig themselves in and paying no attention to the dacha.
And we're right. As I pound across the opening, running for all I'm worth, then through limbs and underbrush, trying to get out of sight in the forest, I see a guy in cammies working his way out from under a pile of blow-down. He has his down hand pushing his AK into the ground as he tries to get to his feet.
His eyes flare when he sees me, and the three round setting on the Ingram quickly makes him a part of the pile of logs.
I pause long enough to look back and make sure Skip and Hank have made it across the clearing, when my stomach knots as I see a man out in the open spin and go down in a heap, but then look left and see both Skip and Hank breaking brush, coming our way. I'm relieved.
Only then do I realize how big and barrel shaped was the guy who bit the dust. Zakhar Dziba, who escaped the growing flames only to be shot down by his own buddies. Three others are cut to hamburger in the dacha by their friendlies. Justice and retribution comes from strange places at times. But it most always comes.
"Move it!" Pax yells, and I do. Pax, who's missing an inch and a half from one leg from saving my ass years ago, seldom pushes me when it comes to a foot race, but he's right on my heels. We don't do the hundred yards to the bikes in any ten flat, but it's not bad for a couple of guys on either side of their 40th, who are having to break brush all the way.
We quickly throw the camouflage pile of brush off the bikes and I'm happy to brag on the Husq as it fires up with a touch of the starter, as does Pax's. I can see Skip and Hank closing on their bikes, and decide to get us out of harm's way as small arms fire is clipping the trees overhead. I empty my clip into the forest just to discourage anyone who might be on the chase, pop in another, then peel out.
My Husq is throwing dirt and forest floor trash out behind in a rooster tail and I make the two track road and hit it hard. When I get to the main road I slide to a stop and check my six. Pax almost runs over me, but he too manages to stop, and we watch until I see another bike on our tail, then I hit it hard, back toward Tartu.
After a half mile, I pull up as does Pax. In seconds Hank roars up beside us, and looks back the way he'd come.
"Where the hell is Skip?" he shouts.
"Damn it," I say, and gun it past him, headed back to find our buddy. I should have paid more attention and taken up the rear. Now I'm cussing myself.
I don't make a hundred yards when I see the Mercedes spin out onto the road, followed closely by the van. The van's sliding side door is open and two guys are hanging out the side, both with automatic weapons. And I can see weapons coming out the windows of the Mercedes.
But no Skip to be seen.
Another stupid mistake. I should have disabled the two vehicles, so easily done with a few rounds from the Ingrams.
I'm wondering if we should stay, set up, and fight, when I see an RPG being worked up out of the sunroof of the Mercedes.
I spin it and haul ass.
We have some tricks up our C.I.A. sleeves and I figure we'll do better being chased than standing and punching it out.
So I hit it hard. Up ahead of me I can see Hank and Pax moving away toward Tartu.
My speedometer says eighty five, and the road isn't the best, but my guys are still leading and I'm trailing were I want to be. Checking the bar mounted rear view I see that my pursuers are not in the least discouraged by the speed, then look up to see a big panel truck coming our way. And he's not bashful about taking his half out of the middle of an already narrow road.
Pax and Hank make it by the asshole and I almost lose it in the soft shoulder, and drop it back to sixty and watch in my rearview, hoping the Mercedes and the panel truck are doing end'o's having tangled up behind me with the panel, but I see that they've managed to pass each other, leaving billowing dust behind.
Time to get serious. I let the Mercedes close to within a hundred yards, then as I'm activating the rear facing, exhaust appearing, rocket launcher, I suck in a deep breath as a grenade from their launcher roars by my head close enough to almost burst an eardrum. I feel the heat.
It explodes in the road ahead of me but behind Hank and Pax, but less than a hundred yards in front of me.
I'm splattered by road chunks as I roar through the cloud, and, thank God for my helmet and leathers, and only do a crazy wiggle from one side of the road to the other and back again a couple of times before I get the bike back under me and steadied. But a large chunk of road has careened off my shoulder and my face is peppered and probably bleeding. But I'm still mounted, still mobile.
Again I check the rear view and have to smile as the Mercedes, then the van, hit the crater in the road and both almost lose it veering from one side of the road to the other. Unfortunately, they're able to regain control.
The guy with the RPG is no longer up out of the sunroof, so I let the Mercedes close on me. Eighty yards, then seventy, then sixty, then when he thinks he's about to run my ass down, at fifty yards when I'm on a nice straight stretch and he's lined up perfectly, I touch the horn button. After activating the rocket launcher, it's become the fire button.
The little rocket takes the Mercedes right in it's lovely little three pointed star in the grill. It's not as powerful as an RPG, but it's not bad as the engine explodes in a ball of fire and flying parts and what's left of the Mercedes heads for the forest.
Trees are not very forgiving, even when opposing a finely engineered automobile like a Mercedes, and all I can see in my rear view is parts and pieces flying and smoke and trash filling the air.
But the van is still on my ass, emerging through the smoke and dust unscathed.
We've probably covered fifteen kilometers as we've been jockeying for position and trying to do each other in, and I'm hating getting farther and farther away from where I've violated the leave-no-man-behind rule.
This time I decide to try the mines, and hit another switch that opens the little hidden compartment at the bottom of my saddlebag.
The van seems a little more reluctant to close as close as the Mercedes did, and I'm sure they're still trying to figure out what happened to their buddy.
This time I wait until we come to a curve in the road, as the mine doesn't need to be lined up with the pursuing vehicle, and they are less likely to see it drop away.
As soon as I'm coming out of the curve, I hit the release, and check my rearview to see the mine bounce on the pavement and slide completely off the road. So the curve was not that good an idea.
But I've got another mine to play with and this time drop it on the straightaway. The driver behind obviously sees it and swings wide to avoid it, but it's armed itself and as soon as he's only five feet from it and passing, it fills the roadway with flame, shock, and hundreds of little ball bearings.
But the flak is likely unimportant as the blast has blown the van over on its side and it's sliding, sparks showering out behind, doing pirouettes in the road.
It slides to a stop and I manage to get braked a couple of hundred yards in front of where it's smoking and guys are scrambling to get out the rear doors and driver's door which is now facing the sky, before it goes up in flame.
And some of the five who unload, those not staggering around, are carrying.
So I hit it again and move
up another couple of hundred yards to where Hank and Pax have pulled up. I wave them off the road into a cornfield out of sight as one of the assholes pursuing us may have had some training and even at three hundred yards or more, the AK can be effective.
Now, how the hell to get back and find the big Viking, our buddy Skip?
And I hope it's not find his body.
22
We do a quick recon. I sigh deeply before I begin. "We've got a man back there and we've got some assholes between us and him. And I don't see any way around them so we've got to go through them."
Hank offers, "This corn field ends about thirty yards from where they ended up. Let's use the corn for cover until we're on top of them."
"And come out firing," Pax says.
"Yeah," I add, "…and the last guy by drop his mines and fire his rockets as soon as he's thirty or forty yards in the clear."
"That ought to work," Hank says. Then adds, "I've got all my mines and both rockets, so I'll take drag."
"And Pax and I will take the soft shoulder when we're fifty yards ahead and give you covering fire."
"What are we waiting for," Pax says, and fires up his bike. He's in the lead, taking the six or seven foot high corn stalks down as he roars through the field. He times it perfectly and makes a forty five degree turn and comes out of the field almost exactly at the corner.
We've had to use both hands on the grips while bouncing through the corn rows, but as soon as he breaks free he's got the Ingram up one handed and is spraying the roadside to his right, I'm twenty yards behind and I spray lead to the left.
It's assholes and elbows as the guys standing around, probably still a little in shock from the wreck, are diving for the sidelines.
Pax takes the right and I take the left and we slide to a stop and both have to pop in another clip before we can cover Hank, but he's out of the corn eighty yards behind us, and, as he passes the van, I can see two mines drop from his saddle bags, then he drops low on the bike and guns it, and when he's only ten yards from us, fires a rocket, then another almost as quickly. But there are still muzzle flashes coming from the brush at the roadside.
