Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  Red laser beams cut through the flaming darkness as the Spetsnaz picked their way over the wreckage. Almost—the point man stepped into the corridor, the toe of his boot catching on the wire.

  Korsakov’s team never knew what hit them. The pair of M18A2 Claymores were wired together, to a single trigger. Decimation—three pounds of C-4 explosive between them, fourteen hundred steel balls flying outward in a sixty-degree arc.

  The man standing beside Korsakov—in the doorway of the cabin—screamed, an unearthly, haunting cry, as he doubled over, clutching at what remained of his stomach.

  Blood stained the white snow.

  Nothing like this had ever happened before—never in thirty years with the Bureau. He’d never seen so many agents die.

  William Russell Cole raised himself up on his elbows in the snow, beside the corpse of a young HRT assaulter. The kid had been the youngest member of Jicha’s assault team—now he lay there, on his side in the snow—a ragged hole in his temple. Sightless eyes staring out into the winter night.

  The negotiator whispered a silent prayer, moving the young man’s stiffening arms to remove the sling of the Heckler & Koch MP-5 from around his shoulders.

  He’d never fired a submachine gun in combat before in his life, but this was turning into a night of evil firsts. Cole rolled onto his side, pulling back the charging handle to chamber a round.

  Movement in the darkness. There, beside a tree—only a few feet away. No way he could move fast enough.

  “Easy, Russ. It’s just me.” He looked up into the face of Vic Caruso and nearly collapsed in relief. The FBI agent’s right arm hung limply at his side, dark blood staining the sleeve. No one had escaped unscathed…

  10:53 P.M.

  A cold blast of air smote Harry in the face as he entered the hangar, closing the door behind him and spinning the handles until it locked.

  He turned, taking in the aged Sikorsky S-55 helicopter sitting there in the middle of the hangar—his eyes flickering toward the open blast doors.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked, moving across the concrete floor. Sammy was kneeling at the bulbous nose of the Sikorsky, the clamshell doors peeled back to reveal the engine.

  “Still losing blood,” the Asian SEAL replied, removing a screwdriver from between his teeth. “I’ll do my best to extract the splinter once we’re airborne.”

  Harry cast a critical glance out into the darkness, wind-driven snow sweeping across the exposed helipad. “There something wrong with the engine?”

  “Negative,” Han replied, reaching briefly inside the engine. He tapped something and pulled the screwdriver back out. “Nothing that I can tell—but the last time this bird flew, Jimmy Carter was President. We’ve only got one chance at this, Harry.”

  That went without saying and a part of him didn’t appreciate it being voiced. Harry moved back, hoisting himself into the Sikorsky’s cockpit. He’d held a pilot’s license for eight years—the Agency had trained him to fly most types of small aircraft and helos. Unfortunately, 1950s avionics hadn’t been covered in the syllabus. A lot had changed. Maybe too much.

  He looked out through the high windows of the Sikorsky, toward the door separating the hangar from the rest of the bunker. Korsakov and his men would be through there soon, once they’d regrouped from the Claymores.

  One chance…

  11:01 P.M.

  Warren County, Virginia

  Watching Tex drive was enough to drive a man to drink. Actually being in the car—that was even worse. Thomas waited a moment to make sure he wasn’t being watched, then tilted back the hip flask of brandy until the amber liquid spilled down his throat.

  “Drinking again?” Tex asked, no emotion showing in his voice.

  Crap. There were times when he thought the big man was psychic. “Yeah, and thinkin’ again.” He was surprised to hear the slur in his own words. He hadn’t been drinking that much. Or had he? It was so hard to remember…

  “Put it away,” came the peremptory order. He looked over into the Texan’s eyes, obsidian orbs staring back at him. Expressionless. A moment passed, then Tex added, “You’re no good to me drunk. No good to anyone.”

  With a languid flourish, Thomas screwed the cap back on the flask and dropped it into the side pocket of the Malibu’s door. “Satisfied, padre?”

  11:03 P.M.

  West Virginia

  One thing struck Harry from the moment the Sikorsky’s 700-horsepower radial engine roared to life from beneath his feet. The old helo wasn’t going to cut him any slack—it hailed from a different era—back in the days before crew comfort was considered, and the term “ergonomics” had yet to be commonly used. Going to need a smooth touch. Very smooth…

  The noise was deafening, or would have been, if the explosion hadn’t already taken care of his hearing. The main rotor transmission was located inches behind his head, gears meshing and whining with all the delightful harmony of an amped-up Black Sabbath.

  In a modern transmission, the gears would have been cut on an angle to ensure a quieter operation. Unfortunately, in 1949, no one had figured out how to do that—or cared, apparently.

  A hand on his arm, Han’s lips forming the word, Ready.

  Harry nodded, motioning back toward the cabin. “Look after her.”

  He couldn’t even hear his own words, but the SEAL nodded and disappeared. His gloved hand closed over the collective lever, gently increasing the power as the Sikorsky began to taxi across the floor of the hangar.

  Taxi might have been the wrong word—it was more of a drunken stagger. He tapped the tail rotor pedals to steer the Sikorsky toward the open door, trying to keep his feet out of the linkage, a spider’s tangle of cables and chains connecting the pedals to the large tail rotor.

  A muffled thump, as though from an explosion, struck his ears even over the persistent roar of the engine. Harry looked back just in time to see the massive door connecting the hangar and bunker fly inward off its hinges, dust and smoke billowing from the gaping hole.

  The flash of red lasersights cutting through the cloud, through the darkness. Korsakov’s men. It was well past time to go.

  A downdraft buffeted the helicopter as it left the hangar’s shelter, the Sikorsky’s wheels skidding sideways in the wet snow. He heard a death rattle of bullets striking the fuselage as the Spetsnaz opened fire and whispered a prayer, easing the cyclic stick forward.

  The helicopter’s wheels left the ground, rising into the teeth of the wind. Harry seized the collective with his left hand, coaxing more power out of the aged engine.

  He saw him out of the corner of his eye, raising the RPG-7 to his shoulder. The fool. A single press of the trigger and the helo would be immolated. “Cease firing!” Korsakov bellowed, his words whipped away by the wind as he raced to Yuri’s side, knocking the rocket tube aside just as it fired.

  Searing hot air from the backblast of the RPG fanned the assassin’s cheek as the grenade arced through the night, striking the side of a mountain hundreds of meters away. “What were you thinking?” Korsakov demanded, his nostrils flaring with anger. “She’s no good to us dead—we don’t get paid!”

  For a long moment Yuri met his gaze—hatred flashing in those dark eyes—then the man from Leningrad turned away, apparently accepting the rebuke.

  Korsakov nodded, walking to the edge of the helipad, his booted feet leaving tracks in the snow. In the light of the moon, he could still see the helicopter, maybe a thousand meters off now, fighting for altitude.

  He raised his right hand to his brow, snapping off a mock salute. May you survive—until we meet again.

  11:37 P.M.

  They found Klaus Jicha where he had fallen, blood staining the snow around his body, a tight grouping of bullet holes in the back of his neck, inches above the armor vest.

  Marika felt for a pulse, but the body was already cold and stiffening. “He’s dead,” she announced.

  Vic nodded, standing there with his Colt Delta Elite clutch
ed in his left hand. “Never knew what hit him.”

  None of them had. The mountain was silent now, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that their assailants were still out there.

  The Russians, the bogeymen of her life. There was no mistaking that language—the orders she had heard barked out through the storm of gunfire.

  She rose from her crouch beside Jicha’s body, a bitter curse escaping her lips.

  Russ met her gaze, the hostage negotiator looking strangely out of place with the submachine gun in his hands. Uncomfortable.

  Marika shook her head. They were both way too old for this crap. Too old and too weary.

  A bone-chilling wind howled across the West Virginian mountaintop, but she was past feeling it, hatred burning like fire deep within her soul. “We’re going to kill them…”

  11:49 P.M.

  Andrews Air Force Base

  Washington, D.C.

  Low. Fast. A pair of F-15s flashed past overhead as President Hancock descended the stairs from Air Force One, his Secret Service surrounding him like a Macedonian phalanx.

  Loud didn’t begin to describe the fighter jets—his ears ringing from the noise.

  Marine One sat fifty yards off on the tarmac, rotor blades turning. The Marine guard waiting beside it was wearing camouflage BDUs instead of dress blues, and he carried an M-16A4 at the ready.

  Something was wrong. “What’s going on?” Hancock asked.

  Hawkins materialized at his side, taking hold of his shoulder and hustling him into the Marine Whitehawk. “The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was ambushed in West Virginia,” the agent responded, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the engines. “At least thirty agents are dead—my orders are to get you to safety, Mr. President.”

  “Shapiro? Haskel? They were supposed to be here—to meet me,” Hancock protested.

  “The directors will be following in one of the decoy choppers. Now, we need to get you airborne, Mr. President.”

  Chapter 11

  1:31 A.M., December 16th

  The Sikorsky

  West Virginia

  They were out of the mountains now, flying west-southwest on a compass heading of 224 degrees. Out of the mountains, but not out of trouble. Not by any definition.

  Harry’s gaze swept from right to left across the cockpit, watching the gauges, focusing on keeping the rotor RPM in the safe green arc, between 170 and 245.

  He’d flown Sikorskys before—a lot of them had what pilots called a “heavy” collective, meaning that if you didn’t hold it up manually, it was going to drop, effectively cutting thrust to the main rotor and taking the chopper down with it. Something you rather wanted to avoid.

  His left arm was numb, braced against his side as he grasped the collective—it felt like he was lifting the chopper up with one hand.

  Despite the engine noise, the deafening roar of gears behind his head, he felt Han before he saw him, his head poking up from beneath the co-pilot’s seat, from the narrow passageway leading down into the passenger cabin.

  “How is she?” It felt like he was shouting into a barrel, his voice ringing and reverberating in his own ears.

  “Okay,” was the shouted reply as the SEAL hoisted himself up till his mouth was only inches from Harry’s ear. Han looked tired, his face pale in the control panel lights.

  “Where are we?”

  Harry shrugged. “Flying southwest, bro. Hanged if I know anything more. Been too busy keeping this heap of junk in the air. Passed over a river about five minutes ago, might have been the Kanawha.”

  He saw his old friend’s eyes drift toward the gauges and Harry nodded. “Switching over to the reserve in ten—we used a lot of fuel getting out of the Alleghenies.”

  “The reserve isn’t going to last long—we’re going to have to find a place to set down.”

  These truths declare themselves to be self-evident. A bright glow appeared on the horizon—probably a city. Something to be avoided—they were pretty near invisible as long as they avoided densely populated areas.

  With a sigh, Harry mashed his foot against the right tail rotor pedal, guiding the helo away from the lights and further west. At their current rate of consumption, they had another hour—hour and a half, in the air.

  Maybe less.

  2:03 A.M.

  Pendleton County

  West Virginia

  It would have taken a drunk not to realize something was wrong as Tex and Thomas pulled into the small Sunoco off US Rt 33. Even the brandy wasn’t affecting him that much.

  There were five patrol cars in front of the convenience store, three state and two bearing the logo of the Pendleton County Sheriff’s department. Either they’d had one deuce of an armed robbery, or…

  His gaze drifted across the parking lot to the van emblazoned with the FBI shield. This wasn’t some hick cash-drawer-and-cigarettes holdup.

  “Take a pass?” Thomas asked, glancing over at his companion.

  The Texan shook his head, guiding the Malibu toward the only empty gas pump. “Not an option.”

  The needle was dangerously close to “E”.

  “Stay here,” Tex cautioned, removing the holstered Glock from inside the waistband of his jeans and tucking it under the seat. No sense in causing problems.

  He swung his door open and stepped out into the chill night air, striding toward the convenience store, his Stetson pulled low over his eyes.

  “Hundred and twenty on pump five,” he announced, sliding six bills across the counter toward the teenaged attendant. Gas money didn’t go very far these days.

  The kid seemed to be moving on autopilot, his attention and that of several other patrons focused on the TV mounted in the corner. “What’s going on?” he asked, catching a glimpse of a blonde reporter onscreen, backlit by flashing lights. Your typical newsbabe.

  “Where you been, dude?” the kid asked, tapping the amount into his register. “You see all the feds? Bunch of them got whacked over in Randolph County, just up the road from here. Something like thirty of ‘em dead, they got people comin’ in from all over.”

  He knew it, even before the map came flashing up on the TV screen, a cold feeling gnawing at his insides. The map was only confirmation.

  Thirty agents dead.

  And Harry was involved. No, he was more than involved. He was at the bottom of it…

  2:23 A.M.

  West Virginia

  The boy hadn’t spoken a word since they’d returned to the vehicles. Hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye.

  His own anger was responsible for it, Korsakov realized, eyeing the boy in the rearview mirror, Viktor’s face illuminated by the pale glow of his laptop. Misplaced anger. If it hadn’t been for Viktor’s insistence on the tracking chip in the beginning, they would have lost their target long before this.

  Things looked dark enough as it was. He had gambled and lost with the FBI—and lost another four men in the process. He swore under his breath, trying to remain focused on the road as they sped south, out of the mountains.

  He’d underestimated the CIA agent, underestimated his resourcefulness, his capacity for violence. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  Inside the pocket of the assassin’s shirt, his cellphone began to vibrate, throbbing with an incoming call. Korsakov let out a long, weary sigh—one hand on the wheel as he plucked the phone from his pocket.

  The number was blocked, but he didn’t need to guess at the identity of the caller. He knew. A long moment passed as he stared at the screen, then he slowly pressed the REJECT button.

  The time for talk had passed. This mission was taking on a life of its own.

  2:43 A.M.

  The Sikorsky

  Kentucky

  Night landings were something a helicopter pilot tried to avoid. Even with the moon, there were far too many things that could go wrong.

  It wasn’t like he had a choice. Nearly four hours after departing from CHRYSALIS, they were over northern Kentucky and
bingo-fuel. A helo wasn’t like a plane—you didn’t have a prayer of gliding.

  If it hadn’t been for Carol…Harry glanced down at the luminescent screen of Han’s phone. It was a prepaid Tracfone—Internet capable and equipped with GPS. It was Carol who had figured out how to use it to pinpoint their own position—and located the small private airfield to their west. According to the website, they didn’t conduct night operations. It should be deserted.

  Harry shut the phone down and pulled his night-vision goggles down low over his eyes, guiding the Sikorsky on a western course. Should be only a couple more minutes.

  The landscape shone dark green in the glow of his night-vision, the helo’s downwash buffeting the leafless trees below them.

  He eased off on the throttle, deliberately bleeding away airspeed as they closed in. They wouldn’t have time or fuel for a go-round. The airfield had a single runway, running east-west. Just a couple hundred feet, long enough for a Cessna…or a helicopter.

  The cyclic came back in his hand, the Sikorsky rising slightly as they came up over the hill overlooking the airfield. Lights. Glare. Pain. Blast it! Harry ripped the night-vision goggles off his eyes, throwing them against the side of the cockpit. The long, slow rotor blades of the Sikorsky began to whip with the sudden movement of the stick and he fought for control of the aircraft, struggling to keep it to a steady airspeed of 55 knots.

  The airfield was lit up like New York Harbor on the 4th of July, flares outlining the dirt runway, the headlights of a pickup truck aimed at a Cessna parked near the western end of the strip. Men running back and forth, shadowy forms flickering in and out of the light.

  They didn’t have another choice. It was this—or crash in the trees. Harry pulled gently back on the cyclic, flaring the S-55 as they came in, tail-low.

  Taking his hand off the collective for the fraction of a moment, he rapped hard on the cover of the co-pilot’s seat. Be ready.

  2:59 A.M.

  The double-wide