by Dale Brown
It took five minutes for the gas to empty from the canisters. By then Danny was feeling the fatigue of the long day. He leaned over Flash’s shoulder and looked at the screen.
“Show me floor one,” he said. “The control room.”
“They’re still at their stations.”
“Awake?”
“Looks like it.”
“What about upstairs?”
Everyone there seemed to be sleeping, but then they had been before the gas. On the third floor, the two men in the TV room were on the couch, still fidgeting, still awake.
Another ten excruciating minutes passed as Danny gave the gas time to work. Nothing seemed to change.
“It should be at maximum effect by now,” said Flash.
The specialist who’d prepared the gas had calculated it would work almost immediately, since there were air ducts in each room. Within five minutes the concentrations throughout the house, with the exception of the basement and the attic, should be more than high enough to put a person out.
It had worked as well as it was going to.
“We go in hard on my mark,” said Danny. “Ready?”
Each team reported back.
“All right,” he said, gripping his SCAR-H/MK–17 rifle. “Three, two, one—”
The charges blew out a large hunk of the wall. A frag grenade followed, eliminating any possibility that the two guards would be able to sound an alarm or fight back. Danny wasn’t about to hang this operation on flash-bangs.
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled as he saw the smoke from the blasts.
The team swarmed into the building. Danny told MY-PID to bring the Rattlesnakes up. Guided by the computer, the unmanned helicopters took off from the staging area two kilometers away and rushed toward the site, spreading out as they went so they could encircle the property.
Tiny went to the attic opening, a panel in the ceiling of the room next to the one with the television. He pulled it open and jumped down, pausing to adjust his night goggles, which had slipped on his face. As he did, he was blinded by a flash of light. Instinctively, he reached for his weapon.
* * *
Gunfire erupted through the building.
“People moving out of the bedrooms!” warned Flash.
“Secure the stairways!” yelled Danny.
In the next second there was a loud explosion on the second story. Something flew out of the wall — two of the Wolves, jumping from the house.
* * *
The deputy minister turned to Nuri as the gunfire erupted.
“I thought you said it would be done without gunfire,” said Nuri.
“They’re trying.”
One of the Rattlesnakes buzzed overhead.
“What was that?” asked Lacu.
“A helicopter.”
“There are three of them.”
“Yes.”
“They look — very small.”
“They are. They’re flown by remote control.”
“Are they necessary?”
As if in answer, the gunfire at the house stoked up.
“I don’t think it’s going too well,” said Lacu.
“No, no, it’s going according to plan,” said Nuri.
In the next moment a rocket was fired from the ground. Nuri looked up to see one of the UAVs turn into a fireball.
* * *
Danny saw the men jumping from the building, but they ran so fast he couldn’t even raise his gun to fire. He jumped to his feet but then fell back as a series of explosions rocked the ground. Missiles began firing from the woods — antiaircraft weapons that had been secreted so well in the trees they hadn’t detected them. One took down a nearby Rattlesnake; the others crisscrossed in the air, trying to find the other targets.
The Rattlesnakes shot flares, ducking away from the attack. By the time they regrouped, the two men who’d escaped the house were inside the training building.
Gunfire began raining from one of the windows on the second floor. Danny pumped a grenade inside, then ducked as the bullets somehow continued to fly.
Who the hell were these guys?
* * *
Tiny felt himself falling to the ground, shaken by the force of several explosions. He rolled to his stomach and groped for his weapon, sure that he was about to be killed at any moment.
The light that had blinded him came from a flash-bang grenade prepositioned in the hallway. A string of them exploded on every floor of the house, designed to break up an attack.
Tiny tried to shake off the confusion. He pushed himself to his feet, then crouched back down, still without his bearings. The circuitry in the goggles had recovered, but his eyes hadn’t, and smoke pouring into the room made it even harder to see.
“Bean, Bean, what the fuck?” he shouted.
Not hearing a response, he reached up and found his ear set missing. His microphone was gone as well — the entire headset had blown off his head when he fell. He pulled it back up, cupping his hand over his ear as he tried to make sense of the cacophony of voices competing over the Whiplash frequency.
“There are three people moving toward the stairs on the second floor,” Flash was warning. “Three people.”
“What about the third floor? Third floor,” said Tiny.
If there was an answer, it was overrun.
Tiny moved back to the door, then threw himself out into the hallway. Smoke was curling everywhere. He began crawling forward on his elbows, moving to the room where the men had been watching TV.
The door was open. He pushed his shoulder against the wall, sidling up the doorjamb. Then he flew forward into the open space, half expecting to be met by machine-gun fire.
Nothing happened. He rose on one knee and saw the two men on the couch, passed out or dead, he couldn’t tell.
Tiny jumped up and ran to the couch. Holding the barrel of his gun at the head of the man on the right, he reached into his back pocket and grabbed the heavy-duty zip-tie cuffs. He reached down and pulled the man’s wrists together, locking them. Then he went around the couch and tied the man’s legs.
Tiny was just starting to rise when something hit him on the side of the head. He flew across the room, against the wall. The force of the blow took his breath away.
He’d been hit by the man whom he had handcuffed. Hands and feet still bound, dazed from the gas but not completely unconscious, the man rose from the couch. He shook his head several times, then raised his arms in front of his chest. He tugged at the restraints. They gave on his first pull.
Tiny pushed to his left, trying to escape. He found his rifle on the floor in front of him and grabbed it, rearing back to fire as he moved away.
Something flew at him, then gripped his ankle. It felt like an iron clamp, squeezing against his bones, crushing them.
It was the Wolf. Tiny flailed with his elbow and the butt of the gun. He hit the man’s face and felt the grip loosen. Then something pounded his left side. He pushed up the gun and began to fire.
The bullets crashed through the man’s face, shattering his nose and the bones of his forehead. But his attacker continued to pound his side. The pain was excruciating. Tiny collapsed as the gun clicked empty.
He lay on his back for what seemed like hours, unable to breathe. Finally he felt himself being pulled to his feet.
“Bean, Bean, get the other guy,” he croaked. He turned, looking over his shoulder.
It wasn’t Bean. It was one of the Wolves.
Tiny was too weak to resist.
* * *
“Got two more guys going to the window,” Flash shouted to Danny.
Danny rose and pumped a 40mm grenade into the open window. He saw the flash and smoke, then watched dumbfounded as a man jumped through the window toward him.
He raised his rifle and began firing. The first few bullets hit square in the man’s chest, but didn’t slow him down. It was only as the bullets came up and struck the man’s neck and face that there was any noticeable effect. The man wobble
d, then spun and fell to the ground.
Just in time. Danny’s magazine was empty.
“Hit them in the face,” Danny said over the radio.
“MY-PID says they’re moving to the tunnel,” yelled Flash. “They may be trying to leave the property.”
“Nuri — you on the line?” asked Danny. “Nuri?”
There was no answer.
“Can you get Nuri?” Danny asked Flash.
“I’m trying.”
“Boston, move up,” Danny said over the radio. “I’m going back to the perimeter where the tunnel opens.”
For a few seconds there was no answer. Finally, Boston acknowledged. Danny jumped to his feet and began running for the woods.
* * *
Nuri couldn’t see everything that was going on at the house, but it was pretty obvious the situation had not gone even remotely like they’d planned.
The deputy minister was walking back and forth near the armored car, wringing his hands as if they were sodden dish towels. His enthusiasm had quickly waned, and his frown grew longer as the gunfire continued.
“It won’t be too long,” said Nuri. “They’ll be done any second.”
Nuri’s sat phone saved him from Lacu’s dubious glare.
“What’s going on?” he asked as the line connected.
“Close down the tunnel entrance,” said Flash, shouting to make himself heard over the gunfire. “Blow it up!”
“Blow it up? Where is it?”
“Two hundred meters from the southeast corner, near the road. The sewer grate. You’re only about seventy meters from it.”
“You want us to ambush them as they come out?”
“Destroy it!”
Nuri turned to Luca.
“There’s a storm sewer near the road up in that direction,” he said, getting his bearings. “We have to destroy it.”
“A sewer? Why?”
“To cut off the escape,” said Nuri. “We need the armored car.”
He began trotting up the road. The grate wasn’t easy to find; he had to pull out the MY-PID control unit for a reference, and even then almost missed it in the low brush.
“There are no shells,” said Luca. “The only gun is the 7.2 machine gun.”
“The big gun isn’t loaded?”
“No shells.”
“Roll the armored car wheel over the opening,” said Nuri, without time to argue. “We can at least do that, right?”
Instead of waiting for an answer, he ran to the truck and started waving at the commander, who was sitting at the top turret.
“Go on the sewer hole. Move!” yelled Nuri, first in English, then in his rickety Moldovan. “Go. Go! Forward!”
* * *
The gunfire seemed to calm as Danny ran toward the woods in the direction of the tunnel exit. He’d taken a few steps when he realized he had momentarily forgotten where the minefield was. The prudent thing to do would have been to stop and ask MY-PID for help. But his brain was racing, and he plunged on, running toward the trees.
He reached the trees as the armored car rolled over the metal manhole cover. When he got to the fence line, he saw Nuri and the others standing near the car, staring at the sewer grate.
Danny threw himself halfway up the fence and began climbing over.
He had just reached the top when the armored car heaved upward a good two or three feet. It fell to the right, bouncing on its springs and rolling away from the tunnel opening.
Danny pulled his gun from behind his shoulder as a head popped up from the hole. He fired at it, two solid bursts ripping into the back of the man’s skull. He collapsed over the edge of the hole.
“There’s another! There’s another!” yelled Danny. He flipped over the edge of the fence and half slid, half fell to the ground. He ran over to the entrance to the tunnel, his head woozy.
Nuri, pistol out, reached down gingerly to the dead man and pulled an automatic rifle from beneath his body.
“Get ready!” yelled Danny. “Get ready — there’s another one!”
The truck started to back up. The gunner pointed his machine gun at the hole.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Nuri.
“We have to close off that entrance,” said Danny.
“Did that guy just lift that car off?” demanded Nuri.
“Get the gunner to blow up the tunnel entrance,” yelled Danny.
“Did that guy lift the cover off with the truck on it?” repeated Nuri.
“Yes — get the gunner to hit the tunnel entrance!”
“He can’t — they don’t have shells.”
“Get some explosive and blow it closed!” Danny reached for his headset. “MY-PID — where is the other man who was escaping through the tunnel?”
“He is returning to Building B.”
Danny grabbed Nuri. “Blow the entrance to the tunnel up. You understand?”
“But—”
“Just do it!”
“All right. We’ll figure it out.”
* * *
Tiny felt himself being carried through the house like a sack of potatoes. There were two of them — one holding him on his back, another nearby.
They were on the third floor, in the room he had come in through.
Tiny tried to move his legs but the man’s grip on them was too strong. His side pulsed with pain.
He felt himself being lifted, then thrown upward, tossed into the attic like a child’s doll. He clawed at the ground, desperate to get away, but it was useless; within seconds he was scooped up and once more flung over the back of one of the men.
The other was grunting something. It was too dark to see — Tiny’s night vision goggles had fallen off.
He heard a swinging sound, and realized the other man had grabbed an ax. They were going to chop their way out of the roof.
God, thought Tiny, I hope Bean doesn’t shoot me when he shoots them.
* * *
Bean felt the wood being smacked a few feet away. He took a step back, sliding along the peak of the roof. Danny had ordered him to hold his position when the gunfire started. Bean had taken some shots at the last man who’d jumped from the window, but otherwise he’d sat here and watched as the situation deteriorated into chaos.
“Flash — I got somebody trying to chop their way out up here,” he said over the radio. “Is it our guys?”
“Two of the Wolves — they have Tiny.”
“Tiny’s with these guys?”
“Yeah.”
The axe blade came up through the shingles six feet away. Bean fired at the blade, striking it point-blank. It disappeared back below.
Bean got up and ran to the hole that the axe had just made. He kicked at it with his heel, then pulled one of the tear gas canisters from his belt and dropped it through.
“Where are they?” he asked Flash.
“They look like they’re going for the stairs.”
He retreated to the edge of the roof, pulling on his gas mask. But he stopped at the edge. It didn’t make sense to go in there with them; they’d just use Tiny as a shield.
* * *
Danny ordered the Rattlesnakes to circle the large building, expecting the man heading back to try and escape. Boston and his men, meanwhile, had joined the others at the house, holding positions on all four sides.
Three Whiplash team members had been hurt, one seriously wounded in the leg by gunfire, the other two merely nicked by shrapnel. No one had been killed.
Yet.
There were only two Wolves still moving around in the house, but they had Tiny with them on the top floor.
There was an explosion on the other side of the fence. The tunnel entrance had been blown up.
Danny was huffing for breath when he reached the house.
“The knockout gas didn’t affect any of them,” said Flash. “Bean just tossed a tear gas canister into the attic. They’re still up there. I don’t think it bothered them at all.”
“Where are our gu
ys?”
“They’re on floor three, covering the hole into the attic.”
“American!” The radio crackled with an unfamiliar voice. One of the Wolves had taken Tiny’s headset off. “We have your people.”
“Let him go and I’ll let you live,” Danny replied.
The man replied in what Danny thought was Russian, then switched to English.
“You will see his legs torn off!”
* * *
Tiny was still wearing the gas mask over his nose and mouth, but without the goggles his eyes had no protection, and they began stinging as soon as the canister exploded. Tears streamed from his eyes.
It was the final indignity, he thought. It was bad enough that he had to die, but now it was going to look as if he had gone out as a coward.
47
Over the Atlantic Ocean
Turk put his hand on the throttle, nudging his power up slightly to maintain his optimal cruise speed as the tailwind shifted.
It was a bit of unnecessary fussiness — the computerized flight controls could have easily maintained the proper speed, even in a hurricane. In fact, the computer could easily fly him all the way to Prague without his intervention, even landing itself: not only could it check in with flight controllers along the way in commanded air space, but it could properly interpret commands from the tower when coming in for a landing.
But where was the fun in that? What good would airplanes be, he thought, if you couldn’t fly them?
They’d be the Sabres, still seen by the brass as the real cutting-edge answer to aviation warfare.
Wallace didn’t think so. But he’d probably retire in a year. Then no one would be talking about “manned flight.”
The hell with the future, Turk thought, marveling at the stars in his viewer. I’m flying in the here and now.
48
Northeastern Moldova
Danny ran over to Flash and had him lock out Tiny’s receiver channel so their communications wouldn’t be compromised. But the mike stayed on, and MY-PID could hear the man who’d delivered the ultimatum about Tiny talking to his companion in his native tongue.
The computer identified the language as Kazakh — the language spoken in Kazakhstan, the former Soviet republic that still had close ties with Russia.
