Black Flagged Redux

by Steven Konkoly

  The car turned right and was now less than two hundred meters from the turn onto Bondegatan.

  “Stand by,” Berg said.

  “Fuck, we’re almost at the turn. Slow down,” Petrovich said.

  He felt the sedan decelerate as the cell phone in the center console burst to life with Berg’s strained voice.

  “The van is parked on the right side of the street, thirty meters back from the target entrance. It’s a white Mercedes Sprinter Van. The other vehicle is parked a few spaces ahead of the entrance on the right. Silver four-door Passat. Daniel, they’re already on the street. Three men between the target and the van and two beyond the target down the street. All male, wearing dark, mid-thigh-level jackets. One of them is leaning against the van on the sidewalk. She says they’re easy to pick out from the others.”

  “Others?” Daniel said.

  “Five more are at the door. Where the fuck are you?” he yelled.

  “I’ll call you when this is over.”

  He stuffed the cell phone in one of the pockets on his jacket and cradled the MP-7 in his lap, disengaging the safety. This was moving way faster than he had expected. He needed to bring it all under control and issue final orders. For Daniel, time slowed down significantly as he formulated a last second plan. They would hit the men at the door hard and let Schafer provide enough cover fire for them to get into the apartment. His plan relied upon taking down at least half of the Spetznaz in the first few seconds of firing. Beyond that, the random nature of combat would decide who lived and who died within the next few minutes. If he made it into the apartment alive, he would readjust their plan accordingly.

  “Safeties off! Leo and Sergei. Get down as low as possible!” he said. “Lower! Lower!”

  Daniel felt the engine surge as the car started to turn onto Bondagaten.

  “Keep the car moving at a normal speed. Stop when you come parallel with the target door. As soon as the car stops, Leo, Sergei and I will engage targets in front of the apartment. Rich, you’ll immediately engage targets forward of the car, up the street. Everyone storms the apartment once the Russians are down!”

  As the car completed the turn, the situation described by Berg’s street contact materialized in deadly detail. They were about to purposefully stop their car in the middle of a three-way crossfire.

  He spotted the white Mercedes van immediately and picked out one of the Spetznaz on the opposite side of the road. He leaned against a yellow wall next to a large café window, pretending to read a newspaper. He couldn’t see the second or third operative on this end of the street, but knew from Berg’s report that one of them was hidden from view by the van. That one probably had access to an assault rifle. He kept the handheld radio out of sight below the window and pressed the radio transmit button. He could see the team of Spetznaz assembled in front of the apartment building entrance.

  “Schafer, one target in the open on the left side of the street. Dark brown hair, black jacket, gray pants. Second target obscured by white van. Careful with that one.”

  “Roger. We’re through the light and moving fast to your position,” the radio crackled.

  The car pulled even with the white van and Daniel spotted the second operative with his peripheral vision. He fought the urge to look.

  “Stay low, guys. Almost there.”

  He counted six men near the entrance to 22 Bondegatan. The entrance consisted of a dark brown, windowless double door, surrounded by a salmon-colored facade. The building towered five stories above the cramped street and connected seamlessly with the other apartment structures lining the one-way concrete boulevard. One of the Spetznaz operatives stood to the right of the target door, in front of several weather-beaten bicycles, apparently keeping watch over the two operatives furtively working to breach the apartment. A second lookout stood on the other side of the door, glancing casually at their car as it approached.

  Directly across the street, a red and white checkered awning covered two small tables occupied by locals. A woman dressed in a gray business suit emerged from the café and adjusted an oversized dark red bag hanging from her right shoulder. She glanced across the street and momentarily locked eyes with Daniel before turning left to walk up the street.

  Time slowed to a crawl as the car pulled up to the space in front of the door. Another operative stood less than ten feet away on the curb, his head turned toward the apartment building. He had his left hand stuffed into the right side of his jacket and started to bring his head around to face the sound of the sedan. The Volvo stopped suddenly, jolting everyone forward.

  **

  Major Eristov sensed that something was off. He heard a car motor, which wasn’t the first to pass since they emptied from the Passat sedan. It was something about Sergeant Greshnev. With the lock pick tool still in both hands, he turned his head to glance at Greshnev, who appeared unusually tense and focused. The sergeant’s left hand drifted toward the PP2000 hidden under his jacket, and Greshnev considered turning to look at the car. His thought was stopped by an intense, sharp pain in his upper right back. Greshnev’s sinister-looking submachine gun emerged from beneath the sergeant’s jacket in a blur of hands and black steel. Shit!

  Eristov pivoted his body and reached inside his jacket to grab his PP2000. Before the lock pick tool clattered to the ground behind him, his left hand had already reached the front grip of the submachine gun and started to pull it forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two bursts of machine-gun fire flash from the car. One of the bursts tore through him, arresting his turn and slamming him into the thick wooden door. He heard Greshnev’s PP2000 shatter the morning silence, followed quickly by another loud staccato burst from somewhere down the street. With his head still cocked toward the street, he saw the inside of the car turned bright red as Russian bullets found targets. Oddly, he felt no pain.

  **

  Most of the Volvo’s windows shattered simultaneously as Daniel’s team fired extended bursts from their suppressed weapons, catching most of the Russian operatives by surprise. Daniel’s first burst cut straight through the stomach of the operative standing on the curb, passing straight through to strike one of the men working on the door. Several bullets stitched across both of the men huddled in front of the entryway, as Daniel instinctively shifted the MP-7’s reflex sight to the man standing to the left of the door and fired another burst, striking the man in the upper chest. The armor-piercing rounds punched through him a mere fraction of a second after the Russian put his own PP2000 into action against Daniel’s team.

  The Russian’s hastily fired burst struck the car’s rear door, easily penetrating the sedan’s thin metal. Two rounds impacted with the ballistic plates inserted into Sergei’s vest and one passed through his right leg, spraying the compartment with arterial blood. Simultaneously, a concentrated burst of fire from the Spetznaz operative standing in front of the bicycles struck the upper rear corner of the Volvo. The bullets effortlessly entered the car’s passenger cabin and passed through Sergei’s skull, turning most of its contents into a red aerosolized mist that instantly obscured the remaining intact windows. One round continued unhindered and shattered Farrington’s driver side window.

  Hot arterial blood pumped through the space between the headrest and seat, splashing Daniel’s neck before he opened the door and charged through the space between two cars.

  **

  Leo’s head slammed into the top of the driver’s seat when Farrington hit the brakes, but he still managed to rise quickly and find his first target through the rear window of the Volvo. He fired a suppressed burst at a man leaning against the apartment wall about ten meters down the street, crumbling the car’s safety glass into a thousand pieces and striking the Russian operative in the neck and head with several armor-piercing bullets. Through the Reflex sight, he saw the body instantly drop to the pavement, leaving the sight’s bright green dot centered on a red-stained wall.

  He swung the MP-7 inward along the apartment wall and started
to acquire a second target, but was hit by a hot spray that covered his face and obscured his Reflex sight. Undeterred by the fact that his best friend’s brains had just coated his face, he fired two extended bursts without the Reflex sight, relying on his practiced ability to aim instinctively down the barrel. He saw the shooter stumble backward, toppling over several bicycles.

  He looked past Sergei’s useless body and assessed that all of the targets in front of the apartment building were down. Farrington’s MP-7 clattered and the front windshield turned opaque. Blood still pumped furiously from Sergei’s leg wound, splashing the car’s gray interior. A loud staccato burst echoed from the street, followed instantly by the hollow impact of bullets against the Volvo’s metal shell. Time to move.

  He opened the door halfway and slid out of the sedan, staying low. Farrington had made the same decision, and they both stepped onto the street at the same time. Leo charged along the rear side of the Volvo, but was stopped in his tracks by a well-aimed burst of 5.45mm projectiles from a shooter near the Russians’ white Mercedes van. Three of the four bullets struck the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert of Leo’s tactical vest, protecting the vital organs of his chest from instant jellification. The fourth bullet hit a few millimeters above the hardened boron carbide plate and passed easily through the softer level IIIA material. The hardened steel core projectile shattered his right clavicle and exited through the top of his right arm. The near simultaneous impact of all four bullets dropped Leo to the pavement, which saved his life. Another burst of assault rifle fire peppered the door he had just opened.

  **

  Farrington slammed on the brakes and raised his MP-7, searching for one of the targets he had identified as the car approached the front of the apartment. He braced the MP-7 against the steering wheel and centered the Reflex sight’s green dot on a man running across the street about 50 meters up the road. He fired a short burst and the entire front windshield shattered without falling, effectively obscuring his view of the street. Through the small hole punctured by the tight burst of 4.6mm projectiles, he could see that his target had stopped in the middle of the street. Aiming through the tiny opening in the opaque, bluish white windshield, he fired a long burst at the stationary man, but couldn’t see the results. Without warning, the inside of the car erupted in a warm spray that painted the windshield red and coated the dashboard with a thin pinkish-red film. He didn’t need to turn his head around to figure out what had happened. He heard muffled bursts of fire from the remaining MP-7’s and decided it was time to hit the street. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Daniel open the front passenger door.

  As he stepped out of the car, he immediately saw that his target had collapsed into a motionless heap in the middle of the road. A fraction of a second later, the sound of heavy caliber gunfire reached his ears, followed by shattered glass and a sharp pain in his upper left arm. He reacted swiftly and dove to the concrete roadway, as several bullets penetrated the open back door and slammed into the space he’d recently occupied. He squeezed off a hasty burst at a shooter located across the street from the van, causing the man to duck inside a doorway. He noticed that Leo lay bleeding on the pavement next to the Volvo’s right rear tire. He wanted to help him, but made the decision to get off the street as quickly as possible.

  He jumped to his feet and sprinted around the front of the Volvo, staying low as bullets followed his path, knocking out the rest of the Volvo’s front windshield and peppering the silver Renault parked along the curb. He slid over the Renault’s hood and landed on the sidewalk, searching for targets ahead of them. Thirty meters up the street, he spotted a man crouched low on the sidewalk next to a white sedan. The man fit the general description of the Spetznaz operatives, but Farrington didn’t fire. The man looked panicked and appeared more interested in keeping his head low.

  **

  Hans Schafer hit the pavement running when the van stopped. He held the compact G-36C assault rifle under his coat, well aware that the barrel extended a few inches below the bottom. He was several meters from turning the corner onto Bondegatan when the shooting erupted. Instinctively, he knew that the sound of unsuppressed automatic weapons fire meant one thing. The team was in deep shit. He pulled out the assault rifle and sprinted to the corner, praying that he wasn’t too late to help. The red light had fucked them over. Hubner wanted to run it, but by the time the van would have entered the intersection, there would be little doubt in any police officer’s mind that they had just run a red light. The last thing they needed was a police escort to Reznikov’s apartment, and he didn’t have time to scan the full three hundred and sixty degrees around them to make a decision. Schafer had put his hand on Hubner’s shoulder and told him to wait. He assured him that they’d arrive in time. As he turned the corner, his initial impression was that he had been badly mistaken.

  He walked casually between two cars parked near the corner, careful not to draw any attention from the Spetznaz operative shooting from a concealed doorway along the sidewalk. Once past the cars, he ducked low and moved swiftly down the street. He saw Leo lying face down on the pavement, trying desperately to claw his way under the Volvo. Automatic fire erupted from behind the Mercedes van where he had been told to expect another Russian, followed by a deafening extended burst of fire from the shooter in the recessed doorway. The bullets hit the cars parked in front of the doorway, ricocheted off the concrete facade of the building and splintered the dark brown doorway to Reznikov’s apartment. He saw Daniel and Farrington pop up from a position between the two parked cars and fire suppressed bursts at the Russians, who responded immediately with a fusillade of their own gunfire.

  Schafer knew what needed to be done. He stayed low, sprinting along the cars, until he drew even with the Mercedes van. The recessed doorway was located ten additional meters down on his side of the street. He rose to a full stand and aimed through the window of the van, finding the Spetznaz operative’s head through his 3X Zeiss RSA-S Reflex sight. He fired a quick burst through the van’s window and turned to acquire the doorway shooter. As he placed the green dot on the next Spetznaz operative’s forehead, he had time for a quick thought before he pulled the trigger. Fuck that guy was fast.

  Schafer’s 5.56mm bullets struck the Russian between the eyes, but not before the operative returned the favor with a well-aimed burst to Schafer’s upper chest. Two of the bullets struck Schafer’s assault rifle, shattering it. The third bullet passed through his neck, causing irreparable damage and severing his carotid artery. Schafer staggered forward, aware that he was fatally hit. He let the assault rifle fall to the concrete and raised his hands to his neck. He stared at his blood-soaked hands for a few seconds and moved his gaze to Reznikov’s apartment. He watched Farrington and Petrovich fire point blank into one of the doors and kick it in. The last thing he saw before falling unconscious to the street was their van speed around the corner.

  **

  More than a dozen bullets snapped overhead, striking the concrete behind Daniel. Leaned against the front bumper of a compact white Fiat, he felt several bullets impact against the car’s metal frame. One projectile popped through the hood and barely missed his right arm. He scooted backward, bumping up against Farrington, who had also decided that the tight space between the Fiat and bullet-riddled silver Renault was the only safe place on the street. A burst of gunfire shattered the momentary calm, and another fusillade of bullets skipped off the pavement near Farrington’s feet. Daniel risked a peek through the Fiat’s partially shattered windshield and saw Schafer running down the street, hidden from the gunmen by the line of vehicles on each side of the road.

  “Our backup just arrived,” Daniel said.

  “About fucking time,” Farrington muttered.

  Daniel heard a burst of fire from Schafer’s G-36C, followed immediately by a tight burst from one of the Russian submachine guns. He popped back up to fire at the shooter in the recessed doorway, but the Russian had already fallen from view. A dark red st
ain covered the yellow wall next to the alcove, evidence of the Russian’s death. His eyes shifted to Schafer, who stood motionless for a moment in the middle of the street. Blood pumped furiously out of Schafer’s neck.

  “Schafer’s hit,” he said to Farrington. He pulled out his handheld radio and turned to the door, pushing Farrington onto the sidewalk. “Get those bodies out of the way,” he said, before speaking into the radio. “Move the van to the target doorway. You’ll need to figure out a way to move the Volvo.”

  “Tell Schafer to move it. I’ll be there in a few seconds.”

  “Schafer’s dead. Farrington’s the only other survivor,” he said and stuffed the radio back into his jacket.

  “Leo’s still alive,” Farrington said.

  “He’ll figure that out on his own,” Petrovich said, kicking the remaining Russian away from the blood-showered door.

  “Try the lock pick set?” Farrington said.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Petrovich said, aiming his MP-7 at the doorknob.

  Farrington backed up and leveled his weapon at a similar point. Both weapons kicked furiously as the operatives poured several dozen armor-piercing projectiles into the area surrounding the doorknob. The bullets tore through the handle and obliterated the solid wood next to the door frame. Petrovich kicked the door with the bottom of his foot, and it gave no resistance.

  “You want to knock on Reznikov’s door?” Daniel said.

  “No, I’m gonna use you as a battering ram.”

  Daniel smirked and darted inside the splinter-filled foyer, searching for the staircase. He found it just past a small set of stairs leading into a lobby.

  “Up there,” he said.

  **

  Reznikov’s eyes flashed open. He thought he’d heard gunshots. He tried to figure out where he was, but nothing made sense to him. His head started pounding immediately, and he tried lazily to lift his head from the table. His face felt numb and moving his head required too much effort. He started to pass out when two staccato bursts of gunfire jarred him back into the moment. His head shot up and he slid one of his heavy arms out along the table, knocking an empty bottle of vodka to the hardwood floor. The bottle shattered, and he tried to focus his vision with little success. The light pouring into the kitchen was overwhelming, and he squinted, which brought a temporary clarity to his sight.