Cold Warriors (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #3)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  And up until the moment he had been told it was actually Russians behind the detonations, he hadn’t felt one iota of pity for those being attacked. Now he just wanted to get this mission over with so the public could be informed of the truth so those not responsible in any way shape or form could be protected.

  I wonder if they’ll go after the Russians next?

  He doubted it. They were white, looked like the average American, and were mostly Christian. In other words, too similar to the majority to target.

  The fuel truck slowed slightly.

  “Now! Now! Now!” he ordered through his comm, jumping off the side of the truck with his men, rushing toward the rear of the plane. He was in the lead, the sound of his men’s boots hammering on the tarmac behind him filled his ears, the smell of aviation fuel his nostrils. It was mostly dark, the runway well lit to their left, the hangars and tarmac, along with the taxiways casting glows all around them, but the Antonov, a massive beast of an aircraft, was nearly dark, only a few lights on the undercarriage and the tips of the wings and tail lit. Long dim shadows were cast in varying directions from the stray lights in the area, but his men, all in black, were ghosts, his own arms, held out in front of him, his Glock gripped tightly, were almost invisible to him.

  He flicked down his night vision gear and the area burst into a brilliant green, every detail of the cargo transport bursting into view as he continued to charge forward.

  Suddenly his display lit up a brilliant greenish white, all detail disappearing. He cried out in pain as his eyes were overwhelmed, instinctively ripping the headgear away as he dropped to his knees. That’s when he noticed the horrific sound erupting from in front of him. He scrambled backward, crablike, but it was too late. The Antonov had erupted into a massive fireball, expanding in every direction as the fuel ignited, eating every molecule of oxygen it could gain access to, shrapnel ripping through the air in every direction as the blast radius rapidly expanded.

  The blast wave hit him, knocking him on his back, his head hitting the asphalt, bouncing several times as the Kevlar helmet did its job. A wave of heat, overwhelming, swept over him, sucking the breath right out of his lungs. He rolled over onto his front, covering his head with his hands, hunching his shoulders up to try and protect his exposed face as the flames roared over him. His eyes, squeezed shut, couldn’t prevent him from hearing the screams of his men through the comm unit.

  And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. The pain in his body was excruciating, and as he tried to stand up he realized he couldn’t, the searing pain unbearable. He managed to push himself to his elbows and open his eyes. He could see the rest of his team around him, some screaming in pain, some writhing in silence, others silent and still, their ordeal already over.

  He collapsed to the ground, the pain too much, wishing he too was among the honored dead.

  Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia

  Charlie Ventura, FBI Special Agent in Charge, had just given the order to take down the RV when he lost contact with the second team at the airport. It took several moments for a clear signal to come through, but it was already too late to abort their own mission.

  The Antonov had exploded, most likely blown up by those onboard.

  If these guys are suicidal, we’ve got no chance of taking them alive.

  And they needed intel. They needed to know if they were the only team involved or if there were others like them. They needed to know where the bombs were, how to deactivate them, whether or not their command and control HQ was indeed in Russia where a transmission had been sent.

  We need to know how to stop these goddamned attacks on our country!

  He just wanted to kill them all, frankly. The only problem was he wanted to kill them all, and without knowing who deserved to be on that list, he had to at least capture someone to find out.

  As they approached the rear of the RV, the traffic thankfully light, he kept their emergency lights and sirens off, wanting to get as close as possible so they could take out the tires and immobilize the vehicle before beginning a full assault, but with the airplane having been blown up, he was quite certain these guys were rigged to blow as well. For now his goal was containment.

  Immobilize and contain.

  And jam all their damned communications so they couldn’t detonate another weapon. Ventura was critically aware of the situation, and the fact this RV was here meant for certain there was a weapon nearby, most likely targeting the naval base.

  They can’t be allowed to detonate the weapon.

  “Begin jamming them,” he ordered over his comm.

  “Jammers activated,” came the reply.

  “Position to take out their tires.”

  His vehicle raced forward as another two surged by in the lane to the left, passing the RV on its left side. Suddenly what Ventura could only describe as gun ports opened in the rear of the vehicle and what appeared to be some sort of Gatling gun emerged.

  “Jesus Christ!” yelled his driver as he swung to the left, the weapon opening up and eliminating the FBI vehicle behind them. Ventura watched in horror as the two vehicles on the left of the RV were taken out in similar fashion.

  “Fall back!” he ordered, but it was too late. Three of his six vehicles were already in flames, and now, to his horror, the RV continued firing from the left and right sides of the vehicle, tearing fist sized holes through every vehicle and pedestrian it passed, those bullets fortunate enough to miss, shredding trees, asphalt, windows and facades.

  It was mass murder.

  “We need air support, now!”

  Delta Team Bravo’s Sergeant Major Mike “Red” Belme pointed at the RV below and Zack “Wings” Hauser, their specialist who could fly just about anything, guided the Black Hawk UH-60 to its target, banking to the right as they reduced their altitude and closed the distance. The carnage below was unbelievable, like something he’d expect to see in Iraq when most of that country was an active war zone.

  But this was Norfolk, Virginia. A sleepy seaside port town.

  Shit like this isn’t supposed to happen in America.

  Dozens if not hundreds of vehicles were aflame, their trail of destruction a glowing line leading straight to the source in the night time darkness. The trailing FBI vehicles that remained were holding their distance from behind and he could see local police units, their lights flashing, trying to set up road blocks ahead, not to stop the vehicle, but to prevent more traffic from being targeted.

  It was horror on a Hollywood scale that at the moment he was almost numb to, he having just received word that his parents were confirmed dead in the Memphis detonation. He hadn’t told little Bryson that his grandparents were dead, but he had told his wife, then left for the range, firing several hundred rounds from the biggest guns he could find.

  Then word of this mission had come through and he had jumped at the chance.

  A chance to kill those responsible.

  “Take out the tires,” he ordered over the comm, looking back to see Will “Spock” Lightman lean out with his door mounted M134 Minigun, it anything but “mini”, capable of firing up to 6,000 rounds a minute. Taking aim and firing, he tore off the rear end of the RV, it swerving to the side as Spock adjusted his aim and removed the rear driver side tires from existence. Sparks erupted from the RV as metal met pavement, the vehicle immediately slowing allowing Spock to take out the front tire as well.

  The vehicle ground to a halt, the cannons mounted on all sides continuing to belch their death. Wings swept down and toward the top of the RV, within moments hovering over top of it. Red leapt out, hitting the roof as did Atlas, Spock and Mickey, Wings immediately banking away. Using hand signals, Red sent Atlas and Mickey to the front of the RV to try and gain access from the door at the front passenger side. He and Spock made for a roof hatch on the rear of the vehicle, Spock quickly planting a C4 charge.

  Red glanced over his shoulder and saw that Atlas and Mickey were out of sight.

  “Brav
o Two, Bravo Seven. Ready to detonate, over.”

  Red and Spock turned their heads, bending over to reduce their profile from whatever may come flying their way.

  “Bravo Seven, Bravo Two, execute in three, two, one, execute!”

  Spock’s thumb pushed down on the remote trigger, the roar loud but not deafening, the two immediately whipping around, their Glock 22’s gripped tightly as they approached the hatch. Red and Spock both pulled stun grenades from their belts and popped the pins, counting out to three then dropping them inside.

  Several more explosions followed by screams erupted from the hole then Red rushed forward, dropping inside and hitting the floor in a crouch, weapon extended. He counted six live hostiles, along with Atlas and Mickey entering the front, the driver already taken out. One nearest Red raised a weapon and was eliminated by Spock from overhead as he swung into the vehicle.

  The team rushed forward, pulling the men out of their chairs and tossing them onto the floor, making certain they couldn’t reach any keyboards or self-destruct buttons before they regained their senses. Atlas put a hole in someone’s head up ahead as he and Red advanced, Mickey and Spock zip tying the survivors as they moved forward. It took less than a minute and the vehicle was secure, the guns silenced, and four survivors captured for questioning.

  One of the men surged to his knees, pushing his head toward a red button mounted beside a terminal near the middle of the RV. Red fired twice, the first hitting the man in the torso, altering his trajectory slightly and eliminating any muscles from contributing to the valiant effort. The second simply ended the man’s life.

  “Anyone else want to be a hero?” asked Red as he looked at the remaining three.

  Silence.

  “Who’s in charge?”

  Silence again, but one of the three, possibly the youngest, took a quick look to his left with just his eyeballs, giving Red enough information to know exactly who needed to be questioned.

  He pushed the man to his knees with a boot shoved against a shoulder. A face glared back at him, defiant pride, even in defeat. Red had seen it before. It always broke in the end.

  “I will tell you nothing.”

  “Feel free to think that for now. In fact, please don’t tell us anything. You’re going on the first flight to Gitmo, and before morning dawns, you’ll be in more pain then you’ve ever imagined possible.” Red dropped to one knee, lifting the man’s chin with the barrel of the Glock. “You’ll talk. They always do.”

  The man smiled at him, the smile turning into a sneer.

  “I die so Mother Russia can live once again.”

  The man made a motion with his mouth that Red immediately recognized as the biting down on an implanted cyanide capsule, and as foam began to appear from the man’s mouth, he laughed.

  “There’s nothing you can do now, American pig. I die by my own hand.”

  Red stood up and aimed his weapon at the man’s smiling face.

  “I don’t think so. You killed my family, now I kill you.”

  He fired, opening a new hole in the man’s head, freezing the smile in place and eliminating the gurgling from the man’s throat that had become an annoyance.

  That’s for you, Mom and Dad.

  Approaching Drovyanaya, Russia

  Dylan Kane had to admit he never imagined he’d be in a situation like this during his career. Sitting with a couple of old Delta buddies—Dawson and Niner—while being transported into a combat zone, absolutely. Sitting across from a group of Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces? Maybe. Joint ops weren’t unheard of.

  But being transported in a massive Mi-24 Hind, in Russian airspace, for a mission on Russian soil, close enough for Moscow’s air defense system to actually take interest?

  Never.

  But here he was, rushing toward an abandoned missile site less than two hundred miles outside of Moscow, one of three American “observers”—heavily armed observers—with two platoons of Spetsnaz operators. What would greet them, they had no idea. The latest satellite shots showed a dark, abandoned facility, as expected. But the last transmission sent from the RV in Norfolk was traced to this abandoned set of buildings, and it was their only lead.

  All three strikes—the RV, the transport plane, and the abandoned missile site—were supposed to have occurred simultaneously, however Russian politicking had delayed their departure, the other events having taken place just ten minutes ago with at this point in time no valuable intel having been gathered.

  Kane’s fear now, and he knew it was shared by everybody, was that their element of surprise had been eliminated. Any commander worth their salt would be expecting an attack at any minute if two of his assets had been simultaneously taken out.

  We could be walking into a turkey shoot. And we’re the turkeys.

  “There it is!”

  Kane turned to see Colonel Chernov pointing slightly to the right through one of the windows.

  “Any sign of activity?” asked Dawson.

  “Negative. But that means nothing,” replied Chernov. “Unfortunately we have the morning light. I would rather have done this at night.”

  “There was no way we could wait,” replied Kane. “There’s already a permanent glow over two American cities, we’re not risking a third.”

  Chernov nodded then activated his comm.

  “Prepare for insertion, one minute.”

  The team began to double-check their weapons and gear as the gunships raced toward the target, any hope of a stealthy approach impossible with the loud thumping of the propellers overhead. It made Kane long for the Jedi Rides the US Special Forces were blessed to have access to.

  “First wave, begin assault,” ordered Chernov. Kane watched as two gunships took the lead, heading directly for the facility as their helicopter and one other slowed, still advancing but allowing the first platoon to have about a thirty second lead on the insertion.

  Kane pulled a small scope from his upper left pocket and held it to his eye, surveying the facility as the lead choppers touched down, spilling their highly trained operatives out the sides, the first chopper already lifting from the ground within seconds.

  Suddenly an RPG streaked across the compound from the roof of one of the buildings, the warhead slamming into the first gunship, tearing the rear rotor off, the massive airframe dropping out of the sky like a rock, exploding on impact, secondary explosions from the weapons pods sending the first platoon to the ground for cover. Gunfire erupted from all around the men, quickly mowing down at least half the team as the rest ran for cover. Another RPG raced across the battle toward the second gunship, but it by now had enough speed and maneuverability for the pilot to avoid the unguided missile.

  It opened fire, tearing apart the roof where much of the gunfire was coming from, missiles streaking from its weapons pods slamming into the façade, crumbling the building into a pile of concrete as the second wave choppers arrived on the scene, the side gunners opening fire blindly, spraying the surrounding buildings with massive rounds that tore apart anything in their paths.

  Kane pocketed the scope, watching as the remaining five men on the ground regrouped, returning fire from behind the protection of the smoldering wreckage of their gunship and an abandoned troop transport. As the Hinds lay waste to everything in sight, the men on the ground focused on the command and control building, the rest, according to the plans provided by the Russians, merely support buildings—barracks, canteen, storage.

  The hardened command structure was half buried into a hillside, its exposed front now a smoking, flaming mess as the Russians continued to hammer it with rockets and cannon fire.

  “Remember, we need to get inside that thing,” said Kane to Chernov, who frowned but nodded.

  “Cease aerial fire, begin second insertion, only fire at soft targets.”

  Seconds later Kane’s chopper touched down and he jumped out, rushing forward toward the abandoned transport and the cover it provided. Skidding to a knee, his shoulder checks confirmed
Dawson and Niner were with him, Chernov and his platoon arriving unscathed. Weapons fire continued to rain down on them, but to Kane’s trained ear, it sounded like only three, maybe four positions.

  “I’m figuring four guns,” said Niner, his back pressed against the front tire of the truck.

  “Agreed,” said Kane. He poked his head up for a moment, long enough to see muzzle flashes from two positions. “One shooter at my two o’clock, second window, second floor. Second shooter at my ten, right corner of rooftop.”

  “Roger that,” said Dawson. He dropped to the ground, flat on his belly, his MP5K stretched out in front of him. “Cover me!”

  Kane, Niner and Chernov’s men jumped up, pouring fire randomly on the three buildings in front of them as Dawson rolled out into the open, sending several bursts of gunfire into the second floor window, the muzzle flashes stopping as he rolled back behind the truck, everyone ducking back down.

  Chernov popped up and fired a single shot, dropping to a crouch.

  “Second shooter eliminated.”

  The gunfire was sporadic now, the bullets still pinging off the rusted metal of the old transport. Kane poked his head up again but was immediately forced back down as he was narrowly missed.

  “Someone almost punched my number,” he said to Dawson with a grin.

  “Better yours than mine,” replied Dawson with a wink, popping up and firing several rounds. “Third and fourth shooters, ground floor of main complex, gun ports on either side of the main doors.”

  “Lovely,” muttered Niner.

  Kane turned to Chernov.

  “Have the gunships hit the main doors on our signal!”

  Chernov nodded, immediately passing on the order.

  “Let’s pop some smoke!” yelled Kane and within moments a dozen smoke grenades were tossed at the door, completely obscuring the entrance. The gunfire continued, but now blindly. “Hit them now!”

  Chernov spoke into the comm and rockets streaked overhead almost immediately, slamming into the building. Kane rounded the front of the transport, rushing toward the right side of the door, Dawson, Niner and the rest of the Spetsnaz team following, splitting into two groups. Kane slammed against the wall, only three feet from the gun port, lead still pouring from the protruding barrel as it rocked left and right, aiming at nothing.