Across the hall, the other man in Max’s field of fire actually stood in the doorway of a room with chairs around a table with cards and poker chips stacked on it. Max thought he saw a rifle muzzle, but the position of the man’s hands indicated that he held a pistol. Only seconds into this, the fog of war had descended. The man pivoted in Max’s direction. Similar to the first guy, this man was fully clothed, armed, and alert—not Vlad waking up in the middle of the night to take a piss. Max guessed that these guards had been playing cards, heard something go bump in the night and weren’t sure, and they paused their game to half-heartedly investigate. Now this guy was at full ready, but he hadn’t completed his pivot in Max’s direction. Max popped him twice in the side but missed the head shot. Max maintained his forward pace and took a follow-up shot on the falling man, hitting him again in the side before he hit the deck. There were sounds to Max’s right—probably Tom doing what the Waynes did best.
Then Max noticed a guard he hadn’t spotted earlier, in the same poker room, aiming his pistol at Max, who had to silence him before he alerted the whole mountain. Max flicked his fire selector switch to full auto and sprayed the man until he dropped. Max didn’t know how many shots he’d fired, but he knew it was beaucoup. The lights in the estate degraded Max’s night vision, so he flipped his goggles up and went with his naked eyes.
The poker room wasn’t a primary objective, but so many threats had come out of it that Max felt obliged to give it special attention. He looked both ways—the hall was clear. He stormed across the hall and into the poker room. The overhead lights assaulted his eyes as he adjusted to blinding white light. He scanned the room, but there were only the two guards lying on the deck. One was still alive; he’d dropped his pistol, and he moved slowly for it. Max stopped him cold. Then Max made sure the other guy stayed dead, too. Finally, he left the room.
Sonny had already moved, as expected, past Max and deeper into the hall—going for the prize. Max followed. He assumed Tom and Hank had cleared their area, because they fell in behind Max. Max weaved down the hall behind Sonny, past a couple bedrooms and through another foyer. Floor to ceiling, every surface was covered in marble—making the building feel cold, hard, and impersonal. Gold ornaments made the place feel more like a crude display of wealth than a palace. They passed a gallery of paintings that Max didn’t recognize nor appreciate and a circular stairway that screwed down into the floor below.
Sonny threw open the door to the master bedroom, and Max burst inside. Although the bedroom had carpeting and felt more hospitable, it was still over the top with a fire burning in a marble fireplace, stuffed chairs, candelabra, chandelier, and ceiling painted like the Sistine Chapel. Max had parted ways with the Catholic Church and swore he’d stopped believing long ago, but this vulgar display disgusted him.
Vladimir Ledouskikh slept in a cushy bed covered in a down comforter. Max instinctively focused on his face to look for a scar, but there was no indication he was the man who’d killed Maman. Maybe he was one of the two men Tom saw leaving the scene at Georgetown before the explosion that killed Charlotte. Max and Sonny ripped Vlad from his sleep, slammed him to the floor, and bound, gagged, and bagged him. Then they snatched him to his feet and pushed him out the door. So far, so good.
Max led them out, Sonny followed, and Tom came next, handling their HVT. If Vlad caused too much trouble or endangered the team or its mission, it was Tom’s job to put a bullet in his noggin. Hank took care of rear security.
Max returned to the circular stairway and rushed downstairs. He moved through the downstairs foyer, into the kitchen, and out the kitchen service door. The tram sat there waiting. And so did two guards—just standing around. Max’s team had come in stealthily, and the large house hid the sounds of any tactical transgressions.
Max nearly shit himself. He should’ve expected the guards, but in all the weed whacking he’d forgotten, and now both noticed him. He rapidly pulled the trigger at the closest guard until he ceased to be a threat. Sonny dispatched the other guard before he could raise his weapon fully.
Max boarded the tram first. As the others came aboard, Vlad thrashed his hands and feet, but Tom smacked him in the head with his rifle butt, and he calmed down.
Hank pressed a control on the tram, and it made a loud buzzing sound, but the tram didn’t move. “Damn technology,” Hank cursed. He mashed the button again, but they didn’t move.
“There’re only two buttons,” Tom said impatiently. “Push the other one.”
Hank pressed the other button, and the tram moved. Hank groaned. Slowly the tram lowered.
Max went back on his NVGs, and his vision turned green and two-dimensional again. Through the rear windows of the tram, the estate and the emerald moon gradually disappeared. Through the front windows, the forest-green valley, covered by moss-green snow, grew panoramic and surrounded them. He pulled a white camouflage smock, which appeared jade-colored now, out of his pack. Max put the smock on over his camouflage uniform, preparing to blend in with the snow better when they reached the bottom. The others changed into their smocks and changed their HVT, too.
Max had spent over half of the thirty rounds in his magazine, so he took it out and replaced it with a full one. Vlad acted up again, and Tom calmed him down.
Max and Sonny aimed forward from the tram car while Tom and Hank covered the left and right flanks, occasionally checking behind. When they neared the bottom, an armed guard aimed his weapon at them and shouted in German. Max and Sonny opened fire and laid him out flat.
A squeak sounded, like a door opening in the guard building. Another guard appeared in front of them, and Max and Sonny took him out. The tram stopped. One more guard appeared on their right and an additional guard on their left. Tom and Hank sent each of them into hibernation before either could fire a single shot.
Max hopped out of the tram and hurried at a crouch, trying not to be seen and presenting less of a target, to the nearest vehicle. He hopped into a small Volvo XC60 with all-wheel drive and began to hot-wire it.
Sonny sat in the passenger seat next to Max and kept watch.
Max could hear Hank and Tom put Vlad on the floor in the back. Hank’s breathing was rapid and shallow, as if he was trying to catch his breath.
Max worried that his old man wasn’t going to be able to keep up, but there was nothing he could do. If he didn’t finish hot-wiring the vehicle, all of them would be in a shit-state. Come on, come one. The engine fired up, and he put it in drive.
Sonny cheered in a loud whisper, “Yes!”
An AK-47 rattled off on full auto behind them.
No shots hit the vehicle. “He’s shooting at shit,” Max said.
Less than five hundred meters ahead, lights at the next outpost flicked on.
“You planning to bust through that outpost?” Tom asked.
“Got a better idea?” Max asked.
Now the outpost was two hundred and fifty meters away, and they were closing.
“There’s only one road out of this valley, and that’s through the two outposts,” Hank said. “We could drive off road, but this ain’t no tank.”
Sonny encouraged Max, “Go for it, dude.”
Max stomped on the gas, and the Volvo leaped forward.
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Tom said.
One hundred meters. Outpost lights flooded them, and someone shouted in German over a loudspeaker.
Fifty meters. Muzzles flashed and shots sounded, but nothing hit the Volvo—yet.
“Hold your fire and hide your weapons,” Hank said. “They’re not shooting at us like they’re sure who we are.”
Sonny raised his weapon anyway.
Max pushed Sonny’s barrel down and barked at him: “Do what he says.”
“The hell?” Sonny complained.
Max flew past the outpost. More shots were fired, but none hit their car.
The second outpost came clearer into view. Before Max was a hundred meters away, lights pointed in
his direction, and guns fired like lightning and thunder.
“They warned us last time, but they aren’t warning us this time,” Tom said.
“We’ll see,” Max said. He barreled down the road toward the outpost.
Seventy-five meters. Vlad cried out, muffled by his gag.
“Hell yeah!” Sonny cheered. “At least one of you has balls.”
“Two SUVs closing in on our six,” Hank said.
Gunfire sounded from behind, and the Volvo’s trunk rattled like a gang of kids were pelting it with rocks at close range.
Max glanced in the rearview mirror. Muzzles flashed from pursuing trucks, and Tom and Hank pressed their muzzles against the rear window and fired through it, slowing the SUVs but not stopping them.
Fifty meters. Sonny put his muzzle to the glass and blasted through the front windshield at the enemies facing them. Max held his breath so he didn’t suck in the puff of fine glass from the initial shot. Cracks spread across Sonny’s side of the window like a toddler decorated it with a crayon, but Max’s side was clear. Hot empty shells from Sonny’s weapon bounced around inside the car, and one singed Max’s ear. The sound suppressors saved Max’s ears from the terrible noise in the narrow confines of a car. A barricade of vehicles blocked their front, and their high beams became a giant blob of white, obliterating Max’s green night vision. The white blob absorbed the lightning of the rifles, but their thunder grew louder. One bullet penetrated the windshield and hit Max in the chest. “Uhn.” Then another. “Uhn.”
26
It was as if a heavyweight fighter had punched Max in the chest—twice. It sucked the energy out of his arms, and he lost the feel of the steering wheel in his hands. But the ceramic plates in his armor carrier stopped the bullets from entering his body. Max cursed the attackers in front of him, and the strength came back to his arms. Because the shots weakened the ceramic plates where they hit, Max didn’t want to get hit in the same spot again, and he sure as hell didn’t want to catch a bullet in the teeth, so he swerved off road and into the snow.
“Aw, man,” Sonny complained. “You lost your nerve.”
“I ain’t no suicide bomber,” Max wheezed. He plowed through the snow and didn’t let up on the accelerator for fear of getting bogged down in it.
Hank chuckled. “The guards are shooting at each other now.”
Max checked his rearview mirror and confirmed Hank’s words. The two SUVs that followed from the first outpost were being shot at by the men in the second outpost. Now the fog of war had descended on the enemy. Max smiled.
The shooting between the two sets of guards stopped suddenly, and Max stopped smiling. The vehicles from both outposts drove off road and chased Max through the snow.
Max steered toward the mountain to gain as much separation between them and their pursuers as possible. Even with all-wheel drive, the front of the Volvo went left, and Max turned right to maintain course. Then the front slid right, and he swung the steering wheel left, keeping a forward direction. He neared boulders at the base of the mountain—he was headed for a collision. Max let off the gas, shifted into low gear, and turned a sharp left. The Volvo drifted through the turn, and the bottom of the car scraped something hard. Max gave the steering wheel a death grip and wrestled to keep the vehicle under control. His heart banged all the way up his throat. He came out of the turn, straightened out, and sped in high gear parallel to the mountain.
“They’re gaining on us,” Hank said.
“Where are those snowmobiles?” Tom asked.
“We should be coming up on them any moment,” Max said.
“We might be needing them,” Tom said.
Max passed what looked like a rustic European farmhouse without a farm. The sound of something hard like rocks or chunks of ice sprayed the belly of the Volvo.
Up ahead came another house, this one bigger and more modern. Max sped over an area that caused the Volvo to slide, and he lost traction. Then the sliding stopped, and the car sank. Are we in a pond? Or a lake? Now his heartbeat rose above his throat and pounded in his ears. The sinking halted, and Max took a deep breath. But the car lost forward momentum, and the wheels spun out.
At the house up ahead was a sign that read: snowmobile tours.
“Snowmobiles!” Sonny exclaimed.
The Volvo’s wheels spun out even more.
Max gave the order, “Abandon ship.”
The four bailed out, hauling Vlad with them. Max ran to the herd of snowmobiles.
“Dropping smoke,” Hank said.
Max glanced over his shoulder and spotted the enemies a hundred meters behind and closing. Hank’s smoke grenade billowed up a cloudy screen to cover the team’s movement. Max popped the hood on the nearest snowmobile. He unplugged the key switch wire and started the engine. The engine’s purr sounded sweet to his ears. He slammed the hood shut.
The others hot-wired snowmobiles, too. Tom positioned Vlad on the seat in front of him, allowing him to keep an eye on their HVT while steering from behind.
Lights flicked on inside the house. The enemy’s engines growled louder behind the cloud of smoke.
Max sped off. He checked to make sure the others were following. They were.
In the radio receiver bud in Max’s ear canal came Hank’s voice: “Only two trucks following us now.”
In the lead, Max raced away from the house and flew down an incline. At a bump in the hill, he caught air. The snowmobile was much easier to maneuver than the car. He looked back again to make sure his guys were still with him. They followed behind him.
He accelerated out of the valley and dodged pine tree obstacles. Downhill became steeper, and he picked up speed. The trees came at him faster.
“Trucks behind are gaining on us,” Hank said.
Max rounded a bend. His night vision goggles only gave him a 2D view of the world, but at least he could see in the darkness. The men in the trucks were limited to what they could view in their headlights.
Max glanced back. One of the trucks slid sideways and struck a tree. The truck stayed there. The other truck took its place and fired at Max’s team.
He snapped his head around and faced front. Up ahead appeared a forest that extended to the left for as far as he could see—no opening. To the right, the forest climbed up the mountain—again, no opening. He could go left and search for an opening, but the truck was liable to catch them on the open ground. “I’m slowing it down and taking us straight through this forest,” Max said over his radio.
“Do it,” Hank said, “truck is gaining us again.”
The shooting behind them resumed.
The first trees in the forest were easy to dodge, but as the forest became thicker, avoiding trees became more of a challenge, and Max had to decelerate more to avoid becoming a tree ornament.
The shooting sound behind him stopped. The trees were spaced too close together for a truck to fit.
“We lost them!” Sonny said. He accelerated around a tree and passed Max.
“What’re you doing?” Max asked.
“Last one to the rendezvous buys drinks,” Sonny said.
Tom’s voice came over the radio: “This isn’t a race.”
The tree line ended, and it was virgin snow for as far as Max could see.
Sonny’s snowmobile shot forward like it was driven by a madman. It was.
The downhill dipped before it rose, like a ski jump.
“Watch this,” Sonny said. His engine whined, and he launched down the hill. He blew out of the dip like a rocket and flew. Then he disappeared on the other side of a hill. There was a crunching sound followed by an engine hiccup. Then there was silence and smoke.
Max cleared the hill and discovered a small patch of busted-up pines on the other side. Sonny and his smoking snowmobile were scattered on the ground among the pines. “Smooth move, Metamucil,” Max mumbled.
Tom stopped next to Max and asked, “Sonny, you okay?”
Sonny stood awkwardly and dusted the snow
off himself. “I’m fine. It’s so damn cold that my leg went numb, and I lost control.”
“You’ve been shot,” Tom said. “Your leg is bleeding.”
Sonny looked down at his leg. “Sonofabitch.”
Hank pulled up beside Sonny and uprighted the smoking snowmobile. He tried to start it, but it wouldn’t run. “This snowmobile is toast. Sonny can ride with me.”
Max tried to help Sonny treat his wound, but Sonny shooed him off saying, “It’s just a flesh wound.”
Max persisted and reached behind the plate in Sonny’s armor, found a tab, and pulled out his blowout kit. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. If it wasn’t freezing out here, you might already be dead.”
The wound was on Sonny’s thigh near his groin. Max tore off the strip on the side of the plastic pouch, exposing the contents. He pulled out the QuikClot gauze, tore open the sterile wrapping, and poked the gauze into Sonny’s wound. Max stuffed as much of the gauze that would fit inside.
“Son-of-a-bitchass-mother-fudge-humping-piss-loving-nutsack-pile-of-shitspitting-chesticles!” Sonny cried out.
Tom lent a hand and applied direct pressure to the gauze. Its hemostatic properties would help the blood clot within a few minutes. Hank kept guard in case any visitors dropped in on them.
Max felt the back of Sonny’s leg for an exit wound, but there was none—the bullet was inside his leg. Max tore open the packet containing the Olaes bandage and unrolled it. Tom pulled his hand away for Max to wrap Sonny’s leg, keeping the pressure cup over the wound. Max secured the bandage. Then he helped Sonny to Hank’s snowmobile, but Sonny waved Max off and helped himself onto the back of the seat.
Vlad stood up and ran like a wobbly newborn colt. Max wondered how far Vlad expected to get, running through deep snow with a hood on his head and his hands bound behind his back. Or where Vlad expected to go, since they were out in the middle of nowhere. Vlad smacked into a tree and knocked himself out.
“Dumbass,” Sonny said.
Tom pulled his snowmobile up to Vlad and heaped him over the seat like a sack of potatoes.
Assassin's Sons: [#4] A Special Operations Group Thriller Page 16
