by Dalton Fury
Kolt let his teams acknowledge his last order before transmitting again.
“Hold in the vehicles until we can identify the correct wing.”
“That it?” Slapshot asked, pointing to the roofline of the four-story hospital through a series of trees in full bloom, fronting thirty- to forty-foot Italian poplars.
“Yes,” Olga said. “Turn right up ahead, past the Jaguar billboard.”
Kolt rubbed his AKMS, mentally rehearsing the steps to clear a malfunction and how to drop a magazine. He’d prefer his trusted HK416, but the cover demanded the Russian rifle.
“Thirty seconds.”
Kolt took in the industrial city’s high-rise apartment buildings, most easily twenty stories high. Looking back at street level, he was surprised by the colorful buildings. Even more jarring were the modern billboards advertising high-end foreign automobiles or pints of expensive vodka, mounted above abandoned sandbagged positions with coiled razor wire stretched about. The scene reminded him of one of those zombie movies. Empty bright green and yellow mini-buses sat idle, hiding a few of the shops that lined both sides of the street. The scene told any visitor that on normal days, when people weren’t in the middle of a nationalist struggle, these streets were popular with the residents of Donetsk.
“Nothing like Sarajevo,” Kolt said. “Hard to believe there is a war going on here.”
“It’s crowded, boss,” Slapshot said, as he pulled the truck into the hospital’s back parking lot.
Kolt looked around, rolled his window up quickly, and tried to look like he belonged there. He didn’t need to count the bodies, intuitively knowing they were looking at three, maybe four dozen separatists standing around in the parking lot in small groups.
“Probably smart for the locals to stay home today after all,” Kolt said.
Dressed in a mix of civilian clothes with random camouflage, some pulled hard on cigarettes, expertly sending mini smoke signals into the atmosphere. Behind them, their weapons were stacked muzzle up, five to six to a group. Some AK-47s were leaning up against the redbrick building under the first-floor windows. Several of the fighters had turned to eyeball the Russian truck as soon as it had pulled into the parking lot.
“Looks like the boys will stand out around here,” Slapshot said. “We should be good.”
Slapshot hugged the curb and slowed to a stop.
“The door!” Olga said.
Kolt spotted the movement too, confirming at least two thugs just inside the front entrance.
“Stay cool,” Kolt said. “Remember, we are supposed to be here. Act the part.”
“Yes,” Olga said. “I’m okay.”
Kolt stepped down from the passenger seat and slung his rifle as if he were on a mission from Putin himself. He helped Olga down from the cab, immediately wondering if overt politeness was smart, and handed her her rifle. Kolt turned and spit on the ground, hoping that would counter any perceived weakness on his part.
Kolt keyed his mike. “Foxtrot at this time.”
“Lead the way,” Kolt said without looking at Olga, realizing he truly was making it up as they went.
Kolt heard Digger drop from the back of the truck, the racket telling him his master breacher wasn’t as worried about noise as he had been back at the truck headlight standoff with the three Spetsnaz troops. No, Kolt knew Digger knew the deal. Live the cover, until living might be fleeting.
The three of them headed for the front door.
“No gunshots,” Kolt said, “until we have to.”
Close on Olga’s heels, Kolt and Digger followed her through the wooden-framed right-side glass door and stepped into the hospital foyer. Instantly, Kolt picked up the telltale aromas of antiseptic and lemon-scented floor cleaner and immediately assessed the purchase his boots had on the slippery tiled floor. Memories of his long stay in the hospital after Yellow Creek began to surface, but he quickly pushed them down.
A large, middle-aged man shaped like a half-full lister bag, in high-water polyester pants and woodland-pattern camouflage of greens, browns, and blacks, strode up to Olga and slammed his palm into her chest. Olga didn’t hesitate, grabbing the thug’s hand and wrist. She tried to free his hand from her chest, exchanging desperate words in her native tongue.
Kolt looked at Digger just as his peripheral vision caught a second thug moving from behind a check-in counter. Digger’s eyes grew wide, telling Kolt that what he was hearing translated into major problems.
Kolt nodded, silently signaling to Digger that he had execute authority.
Digger lifted his rifle and delivered a savage muzzle tap to the shiny forehead of one of the separatists, dropping him like a rag doll in camo to the vinyl-squared floor.
Kolt pulled his blade from his belt sheath with his right hand, circled like a cat, and grabbed a handful of the pear-shaped man’s left shoulder. He spun him counterclockwise, until they were chest to chest, maintaining his grip control. Kolt took in the man’s cigarette breath and noticed his right hand had moved from Olga’s chest to her throat.
Kolt shoved the knife into the man’s upper stomach at a forty-five-degree angle. He felt the knifepoint pierce the empty space in the traitor’s lungs, watched his eyes squint shut and his mouth curl in shock. Kolt jammed the knife upward, until the hilt slammed into the man’s lower rib, feeling the slight but soft resistance of the right ventricle as the cold steel punctured the heart.
Kolt looked at Olga, still holding on to the thug’s right wrist, and watched her calmly let him drop to the tile floor.
“Drag them behind the counter,” Kolt said.
“I don’t need protection,” Olga said as Kolt and Digger began dragging the two bodies across the floor. “These are my countrymen.”
What the hell?
Coming from behind the counter, Kolt wanted to ignore the comment, figuring he didn’t need an argument at the moment, but he couldn’t. Hearing Olga’s obvious sympathy for the separatists startled him, forcing him to realize that maybe they didn’t share the same enemy on her native soil. And worse, to wonder if she was now a liability.
“Anti-Ukrainian government fighters,” Kolt said. “They’d treat you no different than the Russian troops.”
“Some of their concerns are legitimate,” Olga said. “Some might even be blood.”
“We don’t have time to debate this,” Kolt said. “You should have told me. I can’t promise we won’t have to kill others. You can go back to the truck, but we really need your help.”
“This isn’t America’s war,” Olga said.
“Not looking to make it ours. We’re here for one thing only—Marzban and the Iranian scientists.”
“These aren’t Russian soldiers,” Olga said, “they are different.”
Kolt looked at Digger, who was pulling long security deeper into the hospital.
“Shhhhhh,” Olga said, “the stairs.”
Kolt hadn’t heard anything. He looked toward the back of the building, at first not seeing any stairs, as they were hidden. He could see the double back doors, each with a square-foot glass window, head high, that certainly provided a view into the back parking lot where the idle separatists were.
“What stair—”
Kolt stopped mid-question and froze, subconsciously raising his right hand as if to hold Digger from moving closer. He saw Olga’s concern as two camouflage-laden separatists appeared from the back right corner, short-jumped onto the floor, then busted the crash bars on both back doors, continuing outside and allowing the spring-loaded doors to shut behind them.
“Upper floor!” Kolt said.
“Three floors, boss, which one?” Digger asked.
“Second floor!” Kolt said, figuring it was as good a place to start as any, and it gave them options.
“Olga?” Kolt said, offering a hand, motioning her to lead the way.
On Olga’s ass for the move to the stairs near the back doors, Kolt updated the rest of the squadron. “We’re moving to second floor, red s
ide. Three rooms with curtains closed.”
“Roger. We have eyes on the windows now,” Golf One said. Kolt knew Golf team was postured in the parking lot on the north side of the target, and was pleased they were overwatching the same room windows.
Kolt took the bottom steps two at a time, heading for the first landing, and heard his radio squawk.
“You on to something?” Slapshot asked over the assault net.
“Nothing yet. Working a hunch.”
“Don’t get overextended, boss,” Slapshot said. “Plenty of help out here.”
“Roger,” Kolt said. “If we confirm target location we’ll need to flood all sides minus the black side. Parking lot party out there.”
“Standing by,” Slapshot said.
Kolt heard Russian voices and looked up the stairs, both Olga and Digger now in the lead, and saw two separatists quickly turn the corner. The first thug, his AK slung over his right shoulder, bumped into Olga accidentally, a few steps below the upper landing.
Olga fell back into the white guardrail, bounced off, but before she fell Digger bear-hugged her. The lead separatist stopped for a second, appeared to apologize, then continued down the stairs and past Kolt.
Both separatists descended to the bottom of the stairs and the sound of people crashing out of the back doors could be heard again.
Kolt looked at Olga, who had dropped to her rear end, sitting on the stairs. Her eyes were distant, her hands on the top of her head holding her blue denim conductor’s hat tight to her tied-up hair.
“Thank you,” Olga said.
“Later,” Kolt said, moving up and grabbing her under the left armpit. “We gotta move.”
“They said they were about to leave,” Digger said. “I couldn’t get the rest of it.”
Olga nodded, agreeing with Digger’s understanding of what the two men had said before they had startled them at the top of the stairs.
“Follow me.” Kolt took two steps to clear the stairwell and gain the tiled second floor.
The hallway was empty, save for a lone gurney halfway down. Kolt found the first open doorway on the left and took it, rifle raised to high ready, clearing his corner before collapsing to his secondary sector of fire by sweeping his rifle back across the room until he met Digger, now posted up in the opposite corner.
“This is Golf One. Two trucks just departed to the east. Full of troops.”
Kolt eyed the internal door on the far corner, assumed it was a bathroom, and moved to it. He reached for the doorknob, slowly turned it to ensure it was unlocked, nodded to Digger, and pulled it open. Digger picked up as number-one man and flowed past Kolt, who followed, clearing in the opposite direction.
“Open door,” Kolt said just loud enough for Digger to hear, “hallway.”
Just then a group of men, cammie over civvies, blew by the doorway heading for the stairs Kolt’s team had just come from. Two stretchers passed, a litter bearer on each side, hauling two patients still dressed in civilian clothes and half covered by white bedsheets.
Kolt turned to Olga. “Those men on the stretchers, locals?” Kolt asked.
“I can’t be sure,” Olga said.
“Digger, take the door.”
Kolt moved to the window, pried open the gray curtain, and peeked out. He waited for a few seconds, scanning the deck where the ambulances were parked and the separatists had been lounging around, pulling on lung darts.
“They’re armed up,” Kolt said. “Maybe a dozen left.”
“Gotta be him, boss,” Digger said.
Movement on the back stairs outside caught Kolt’s eye. The stretcher bearers were carrying two men, which he was now certain of. Their skin color was definitely darker than the Ukrainians’, they both had jet-black hair, and one was wearing wire-rimmed glasses.
“I agree,” Kolt said, quickly referencing his GTG before reaching for his hand mike.
“This is Noble Zero-One, target PID black side.” Kolt watched the group move toward the open back doors of one of the blue-and-white ambulances. They stopped, slowly slid both litters into the back, and closed the door.
“All elements, three ambulances,” Kolt said. “Marzban is inside middle ambulance. Lock them down with total isolation. Weapons tight.”
The acknowledgments coming over the radio from his men bumper-upped in the vehicles outside barely registered as Kolt turned back to Digger.
“Moving directly to the three rooms,” Kolt said. “No time to clear all of them.”
“Rog.”
Kolt led the way into the hallway, moving in a careful hurry, not an uncontrolled sprint where he might throw a shot. With both eyes open, Kolt looked just over the Soviet-made rifle’s iron sights at three closed hospital room doors. He felt Digger on his right rear, covering the right side of the hallway as they pushed.
“Center door,” Kolt said, pausing for Digger to pass him to check the lock.
Digger slowly turned the knob, shook his head left to right, signaling no breach, and rotated his back to the door. Kolt kept his rifle trained on the door, but quickly looked left and right at the other two doors, ensuring they wouldn’t be caught flatfooted.
Digger lined up his titanium lower leg, raised it horizontal to the white tile floor, and delivered a powerful mule kick just below and to the left of the doorknob. The door flew open with a sharp crack. Digger hopped out of the way, wincing as he did so. Kolt could check to see if he was injured later. He charged past him and into the room.
THIRTEEN
Kolt cleared the right corner quickly, pushing his focus beyond a wooden chair and small desk. Then, in the mirror on the wall, he saw a figure’s reflection from the opposite side of the room. Kolt spun, set his trigger finger, and pulled a pound before his mind arrested his actions.
“Get down!” Kolt said, feeling Digger roll in the room and catching Olga in his peripheral as she stopped in the fatal funnel of the doorway.
Two people stood locked together a few feet away; only a bloodstained hospital bed stood between them. The first was a skinny man, dressed in a white button-down shirt over dark, wrinkled slacks and soiled shoes, a look of genuine fear in his eyes, his body language signaling he had accepted his fate. Holding him from behind was a larger woman.
Assuming she was Marzban’s old lady, Kolt was impressed with the Iranian terrorist’s taste, but only from the neck up. She was fairly attractive, dirty-blond hair just hitting her neckline, but that’s where it ended.
Kolt immediately knew her look was all business, having seen the same in many others who had made a stand against a Delta operator. Her hips were super-size in the area most heavyset women despise, both sides bookending the narrow man she held with a strong arm over his bony chest. Her other hand, wearing a thin black glove, held the muzzle end of what looked like an antique Makarov 9mm to the frightened man’s forehead.
Olga spoke first but her words were met with a vicious retort as the woman only tightened her hold on the man, shook the Makarov, and inched closer to the drawn curtains, keeping the bed between her and the strangers.
“Boss,” Digger said, not loud enough to interrupt Olga’s verbal interrogation. “Look familiar?”
With his rifle still at the high ready, aimed at the tethered man and woman, Kolt took his eyes off the target for a moment, turned his left forearm slightly, and looked down at the GTG. He knew he didn’t have a passport photo of Marzban’s girlfriend taped to the satellite photo of the hospital, but he had mug shots of Marzban and the Iranian scientists.
“Olga?” Kolt asked.
“She is not from here!”
Kolt raised his Soviet AKMS rifle an inch or so, placing the front iron sights on the Iranian’s pointy Adam’s apple, and fired one round. The copper bullet tore into the man’s neck, locking his eyes open, likely severing his larynx and vertebrae, before blowing a massive exit wound out the back. The bullet, having lost some energy but still deadly at less than twelve feet, entered the woman’s right clavicle, for
cing her to release her hold.
The scientist collapsed in a heap, his body weight dragging the woman to the floor with him. The Makarov, still connected to her black-gloved trigger finger, flopped harmlessly to the floor.
Kolt stepped around the hospital bed, intent on safing the Makarov, and failed to notice the open bathroom door. Another man, holding a surgical scalpel, lunged toward Kolt. The razor-sharp blade found Kolt’s right forearm, piercing his Spetsnaz sleeve and the bandage over Roscoe’s underwater bite, and penetrating deep into the bone.
Kolt stumbled, tried to turn his rifle to the threat, and tripped over Olga and the scientist. As he fell, a radio transmission from Slapshot boomed through his earbud. The assailant jumped on Kolt’s side, and frantically beat him over the head with a barrage of flailing but effective hammer fists.
Kolt reached up and circled his arms around the man’s upper body, bringing him close before rolling him over to his back and taking the mount. Kolt held the man’s right arm down against the floor, his elbow at a perfect ninety degrees from his body. With his right hand, Kolt pinned the man’s right wrist, then slipped his left hand under the man’s right triceps, fishing it forward until Kolt found his own wrist. Kolt locked it in and rotated his hips forward, applying a form-perfect jujitsu paintbrush. Applying upward pressure, Kolt torqued the man’s elbow and bent it in a way God never intended.
Kolt held the lock as the man screamed, trying to squirm out of the hold. A second later, Kolt felt and heard the man’s shoulder dislocate and the radius bone in his forearm snap. Kolt released the grip, began to push away, and saw Digger’s muzzle placed on the screaming man’s head.
“NO!” Olga yelled.
“Hold up, Digger,” Kolt said, slowly pushing the rifle muzzle away.
Kolt stood, looked down at the damage, and adjusted his sling to realign his rifle. Next to the scalpel-wielding man, the skinny scientist was clearly dead, maroon blood already pooling underneath him. Marzban’s girlfriend was on her thick back but still alive, her softball-shaped breasts rising and falling rapidly. Kolt noticed her hazel eyes locked on the ceiling, her dark eyelids flapping like Morse code, fighting her body’s natural descent into shock.
