Grigor turned to face the center, murky, as fresh smoke boiled out of the latest sputtering canisters. He reoriented himself on the backup power building, turning in its general direction from the hatch, following a long scratch he'd worked into the soft roof surface, flecked with gravel. Having his internal navigation under control was how he'd always won in this sort of fight, where eyes were useless and misleading.
There was no need to delay and seconds counted as the canisters sputtered out quickly. The meth and adrenaline made him jog quickly in a beeline, so fast he nearly ran into the steel building's corner that loomed up before he was ready. Stopping himself, he spun to lean back against the cool metal side, catching his breath, happy he'd arrived without being shot at, sliding down to sit low against the building, looking out to see any movement from his enemy. He'd made it!
Another canister of smoke hit the roof and began sputtering – white smoke this time. To Grigor the opaque clouds were oddly pleasant and fairly odorless, with a hint of vinegar, harmless since it didn't persist very long. The latest canister firing off, adding it's smoke to the others, told him his man was still working his away around the perimeter. He'd followed his instructions, tossing them in a high arc that hid his location when they fell out of the sky. Only a man with nerves of steel, like him, could hold in his growing fear he was being surrounded. He hoped his other fighter kept moving, staying near the perimeter, following the roof's edge as he searched the interior haze for the intruder, forcing Jabo to find a place to hide in the center.
This simple trick would insure his opponent kept away from the edge, at least the part his man had patrolled so far. It was a matter of waiting as the places he could be hiding were eliminated, until it left a small area in the middle of the roof. It had worked before and would tonight. Experience and patience would be the winners tonight.
Forcing Jabo to the middle, where the smoke was thickest, would make him use a plan based on the smoke blanketing the top of the building. A weak man would seek its comforting cover, while the stronger one, like Grigor would brave the wispy fringe along the outside, looking in. The thickest smoke, both hid and blinded, insuring the person inside its protective fog could be picked off at will. Easing around the corner of the power building, Grigor peeked for a second. He saw the dark rim of the building's interior, the door open a few inches, enough to shoot out. Was the shooter hidden in the inky darkness inside? It was impossible to rule out.
He dropped back, sliding down to make a small ball pressed against the cool steel covered wall of the generator building. Grigor ran the scenarios, putting himself in the man's position. Was staying inside the building, forcing Gigor to come to him the best play?
It didn't work, on many levels. Staying inside the generator building was the worst plan, if you wanted to live or fight off the attacker. The aggressor had far more options, since the doorway limited vision for anyone inside, allowing someone like Grigor to sneak up within inches of the gap left by the door, intentionally left ajar. The heavy reinforced door became Grigor's shield in that case. He could toss a flash bang inside, then another smoke grenade, knock open the door, hiding behind the door frame as he shot down the narrow interior hallway, avoiding the precious diesels offset to the side without much trouble. He could afford to lose one if he got the attacker. It was a killing ground, but not for the defender. The small space insured he'd be shot without much difficulty, not the attacker. That analysis decided Grigor's next move.
Rather than take the time to go around the building, Grigor rushed it, blasting at the darkness inside the narrow gap, then he kicked it open and held fire, suddenly worried he'd destroy critical electronics or the precious engines they controlled, what he'd need in working condition to save the damned computers below him. He snapped on the light switch after fumbling around on the nearby walls beside the doorway. At least that worked. He'd insisted on being trained by the factory reps in manually starting the diesels, which they proudly stated would never be required, given their automatic systems. A quick glance revealed all the manual shut offs were down, each with a bright red LED, instead of the normal green. It instantly explained why the large diesel engines had turned off.
If it was that easy... Were they mined? He examined the first switch then gently returned it to the 'run' position. Nothing. Quickly going to each in series he flipped them up, start to finish in less than twenty seconds, then held down the red start button for the first engine where he'd ended up, all the way in the back. He was rewarded with the sound of the first diesel firing up. Excellent, but he needed all six running, at least five, since they could turn off interior lights and the keep the air conditioning to a minimum – so these big engines would provide whatever the damned servers needed to run properly. He was winning!
Jabo heard the diesels fire off, making it clear Grigor had made it to the power building. “Great, I know where you are and you don't know where I am,” he muttered to himself, feeling confident his plan was working, the same thing Grigor was feeling inside.
“Hey,” Grigor's last man, who'd been working around the edge of the roof, jerked up his rifle as he pulled the trigger, on full auto, aiming at Jabo he could see hiding behind a large metal box. Firing as he swung the flaming barrel toward the crouching man, dressed in black fatigues, he was sure he'd hit him seconds after seeing Jabo materialize out of the thinning smoke, drifting and dispersing as it floated towards the edge of the building. Grigor's man stood fifteen feet away from Jabo, blasting away. He'd mindlessly followed Grigor's orders, walking, crouched over, moving along the outer rim of the concrete warehouse, staring into the dense smoke and tossing canisters to keep it thick and impenetrable, searching for the man he'd just found. Not well trained or experienced, he was shooting wildly, holding the trigger down, his rifle on full auto, unable to keep the barrel from rising up, higher and higher, making most of his rounds shoot off into the sky to land over a half mile away.
A few, initial rounds hit near Jabo, who'd jumped aside to kneel behind a large A/C compressor that had started up when the diesels energized the building's circuits. It killed his hearing as he tried to count the diesels firing up, one by one. It also muffled any sounds the man made crawling around the perimeter. Jabo had made the most basic mistake of combat, focusing on one element of the battlefield – the diesel power-plant – which meant he was ignoring his 'six' as they called it, the area behind him. His desire for revenge had distracted him at a critical moment, far too confident he could see or hear anyone creeping up on him from behind.
He was more angry at himself than the man who'd shot off an entire clip in seconds, missing him but producing buzzing bees – rounds barely missing his head. Jabo rolled out of his initial leap, moving automatically to evade the man's automatic burst in his general direction. Alert after landing, he froze in a new position, his own rifle pointing at the source of fire and sound. Orienting on the flame of the man's weapon, Jabo heard the click of the chamber as it snapped back and locked there – the magazine empty, his rifle ready for another clip. Rising and pointing his own weapon in the direction of the bright muzzle flashes he'd seen the gun rising to paint a wide vertical arc in the smoky darkness. Jabo materialized out of the wildly colored fog, a deadly ghost, catching the man with the empty clip in his hand he'd just ripped out of his machine gun. He quickly tossed it aside as Jabo approached, patting his chest, trying to retrieve a full one and reload.
“Empty Tovarich?” Jabo smiled and aimed for his head, only fifteen feet away. It was murder, but this man represented the other side, one of the enemy, remotely responsible for his grief and rage. The man's nervous, hopeful smile acknowledged he was harmless – caught with a useless gun. A more experienced fighter would have drawn his pistol, loaded and ready to fire at close range as his enemy closed, as Jabo had, but this one seemed to forget he had one, surrendering to his terror, offering himself up to Jabo's mercy.
The grinning idiot tried to find an exit, some way to survive. His eyes,
unusually big and darting rapidly around, stopped, as he considered the over twenty foot drop off the side of the building, something he'd have a good chance of surviving. Before he could move, Jabo caught him under his chin with a single round, nearly taking his head off. Certain the man was dead, he turned in the direction of the power plant. Shooting full auto until you were empty worked only once, or it didn't – not a good way to learn how to fight with the big boys. Holstering his pistol, he hurried back to his rifle he'd dropped in his escape from the man's surprise fusillade.
Jabo's small fire fight had alerted Grigor who fled from the power plant. His boots crunched across the rough roof surface without revealing exactly where he was going, muffled by the roar of the six diesels going full bore. Jabo's one chance to catch him in the power plant, bringing up the engines was gone. Now it was cat and mouse, but Jabo wasn't waiting to grind this out.
Going back to the dead man after he'd retrieved his rifle, Jabo fished out s couple of the last few smoke canisters from the large canvas bag at his side and slipped their handles on the front of his bulletproof vest, ready to toss. He lifted the dead man up with pure rage and animal triumph, then threw him over the edge, hoping his men would see what he'd done, that he was picking them off as he'd planned. One very down, two to go.
Grigor had run when he heard the spray of automatic fire – the distinctive low 'burr' of an AR-15, what he'd got his men instead of the AK-74's he would have preferred. It was another dictat from his managers who had no right making military decisions for him. The AR-15, standard rifle of the US Military was a reliable enough but fussy and sometimes prone to jamming, a death sentence in a small fire fight like this. Following orders from above, he'd found a decent knock off that worked fine, even better with the full auto function restored. Using standard twenty round mags, it could be an ideal weapon for a fight like this and he hoped his man had killed their assailant. Then a single shot rang out – a louder, bigger round, different from the smaller NATO standard .223 caliber the AR-15 used. It gave him pause, assessing the advantage it conferred on his adversary.
Gigor's assessment changed but not his desire to attack and kill Jabo. His last man was dead, leaving it to him, since his other, wounded man was useless, guarding the hatch as he slowly bled out. Grigor was unsure if his opponent had hit the man's artery and he didn't really care. This fight had always been between the two of them, the over confident American and him, the merciless Russian mercenary, who fancied himself a boss some day.
From his current position, he could stay near the backup power building, guarding it or hide nearby, to shoot him as he attacked – both defensive tactics. But Grigor felt more confident working through the murk, trying to catch the other man stalking him, taking the offensive. It was offense while acting in defense. When he'd slipped out the door, he left it as he'd found it, ajar, which had the same vague possibility that he was still inside, looking out, ready to fire. It would work like a second man, for a moment, provide a moment of hesitation.
Jabo listened, moved, then listened, glad the smoke didn't alter the sounds coming through the still night air, silent except for the low grumble of the diesels, now the last smoke canister had stopped hissing. He heard the squeak of the power building door, then again, slower and softer, damping the sound of the diesels, closing, but not completely. Someone had left then put the door back in position. He clearly thought along the same lines as Jabo, making him far smarter than the man he'd just killed.
“Didn't close it, did ya?”, he muttered to himself, wishing he'd stayed in sight of the building. This fight would have been over, except for he man he killed. He could have attacked while Grigor was restarting the diesels, the big Russian's attention diverted, like Jabo's had been seconds ago, when he was nearly shot in the back by the man who'd unloaded a full clip on him. If the man had held his rifle sideways... like the ghetto thugs do with their pistols – it would have sprayed laterally, a horizontal arc rotating around instead of lifting up. As close as he'd been, exposed, staring in a different direction, the line of fire would have easily hit him, stitching across his back – dead.
Jabo was infuriated at himself for making such a newbie mistake. If he did that again, with his current opponent, a far craftier man, Jabo wouldn't survive. Walking into the smoke Jabo slid his feet forward carefully, just above the surface, a practiced move for urban fighting, silencing his footsteps. He had to be ready to drop and roll, or change direction in a leap, flying out of incoming fire or avoiding an explosion. Jabo was on a hunt, just like Grigor. The man who got off the first, killing shot would win.
Grigor kept his back against the power building wall, stopping on the opposite end from the door. He watched the comforting smoke gradually disperse, but it would open things up for both of them. He again considered hiding, waiting for it to fade enough he could see at least thirty or forty feet, catch the other man stalking around, looking for him. It sounded like the smart thing to do now, less risk. Hiding or waiting, both passive fighting tactics, weren't something he'd have normally done when he was younger and highly aggressive, confident he'd never die. But that was then, and he had much more to lose, far more to gain – when he won.
Moving away from the end of the building he lay on the ground, the minimum profile he could make in the dark. His backside, immediately behind him couldn't be protected laying prone like this. He faced forward toward the front of the building, twenty or so feet away. He was playing the odds. The last rifle shot had been in front of him and that meant Jabo was probably still in that general area. Staying anywhere near the power building would let him catch him creeping up. if he approached the building doorway directly, like Grigor had. If he circled around Grigor's position was highly exposed from the rear. It was a risk he'd take. Every choice was a gamble in a fight like this – every fighter a gambler, betting his life.
Jabo remembered the odd pile of rocks he'd seen moments after he'd landed, coming to mind without thinking about it, like his unconscious had decided he might find it useful. His original idea returned, a clear image in his mind, looming up at the appropriate time. It was one of those things he did – how his brain worked in combat – always recording the playing field, always seeking an advantage. Then magically, his mind presented an image of the solution he needed. As he started off, he came up with an even better idea, changing course, jogging as quietly as possible back to his parachute, piled up near the edge of the roof, maybe he could use that. The idea was changing as he moved silently, bringing a smile to his lips. The rocks were nearby, if he needed them.
Grigor was getting worried, the rumble of the damned diesels killed any chance he could hear anyone approaching him, making his choice to stay in one location, near the power building a bad idea. Ready to move, he heard something, then strained his ears, turning in the direction, then heard it again – the sound of rocks, kicked up by someone moving around in front of him? Was someone out there, trying to rush him, forced to walk through some gravel spread out on the roof? Why hadn't he walked this roof before? It only would have taken very little time to memorize the entire layout of metal vents and A/C compressors – mapping the various roof surfaces. He'd had years, stationed at the dreary blue building. His anger, distracted him, narrowing his focus.
Grigor's normally icy nerves were jangled by the loss of one man laying wounded by the hatch, then the death of the other. Normally it wouldn't bother him but his exhaustion combined with the jagged arousal of the meth he'd snorted unsettled his mind, making him fight to stay focused. His eyes burned from being up so long, aggravated even more by the smoke. He turned his rifle and fired, shooting off the entire clip, holding the gun down with his rigid arm on the fore-stock, so it made a fan of bullets at waist height, unconcerned if it hit his wounded man laying near the hatch combing.
Jabo had paused behind the only solid metal object he could find, a high efficiency A/C compressor, one of many that were scattered around the roof. The big compressors had been the wors
t obstacles when he'd landed – bulky and higher profile than the low, sheet-metal vents. He'd flown between them, happy they were arranged in rows along the roof, equally spaced and leaving a wide central lane he'd used like a landing strip.
The bullets from Grigor's gun spewed out, banging off metal around him. Jabo could see the night vision killing flash of the automatic on full auto, only fifty feet away. The bright light from his ammo firing off rapidly also revealed he was beside the power building. Jabo had hoped the other man would stick around the metal shed, using it's solid, bulletproof walls for protection, the only sure armor against bullets on the top of the roof. Holding his bundle to his chest, Jabo was happy the compressor had taken the rounds that would have hit him, though some small shrapnel bounced harmlessly off his chest, a half spent round, ricocheted off something to bite at his leg as it slid by. For all those rounds, the only thing Grigor knocked out of this fight was the A/C compressor shielding Jabo. He listened to the machine stop whirling, its electrical power shorted out – dead. 'Good shooting Grigor, you killed an air conditioner'.
Jabo rose, fixing the last location of the Russian man and his gun in his mind, the constant drone of the diesels killed his hearing as much as Grigor's. Using it to cover his boots crunching on the roof, he ran directly toward the muzzle flash the instant it stopped. Grigor had to be flat on the ground from the height of his weapon's bright flare.
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