by Alex Carlson
“Yes,” said Colin.
“Are we all ready?”
“Yes. Tyler’s got the big gun with twenty rounds left. He’s got no night vision, so he’s downplaying how effective he’ll be. My clip is full and I can usually hit up to about twenty yards. We have an extra Beretta. Maybe we should give it to Maksym?”
Stirewalt considered. “No, I can’t imagine he’d be much help with it. Let them support each other when it comes.”
“Alright. Tyler will tell us where to be. At least we’ll go down fighting.”
“Yes. Shoot your guns till they’re empty. It’s—”
“I see movement!” The shout came from Tyler, who stood at the south-facing window in the hut’s main room. Lucinda and Colin rushed to him. Tyler’s fingers worked the focus of the binoculars raised to his eyes. It was dark and though he couldn’t describe what he had seen, he knew he had seen something. Flashes of movement in several locations.
The moment had come.
“I can’t see shit,” said Tyler.
SCHARKOV PASSED THROUGH a small glade—a beautiful spot for a picnic, he could imagine—before holding up the men just inside the last of the trees before the sprawling meadow that led to the CIA safe house. He could see the old hut with its timber walls and sturdy slanted roof. It looked old, heavy, solid. Still, it would be easily penetrated. We made it, he thought, experiencing a brief moment of relief before remembering the accomplishment’s horrendous cost.
They knew the drill: hydrate, stretch, perform a final equipment check, listen to last minute commands, and get each other fired up.
Scharkov placed two men on perimeter, one on each side. It wasn’t sufficient, but he couldn’t afford to place more. The rest would snake and twist through the meadow with sufficient space between them. If they presented any targets to the enemy, they’d be solitary ones, giving the rest time to react.
Scharkov kept to himself the niggle of doubt he felt. Georgy Stepashin, the sole remaining member of Gray Scout, reported in fifteen minutes earlier. He had been on top of the rock wall behind the hut and had reported that no one had left the hut. The Tereshchenkos were inside. Then, Stepashin had gone silent. What was the reason for that? Scharkov didn’t know, but at this point it didn’t matter. The targets inside were trapped and could only be lightly armed. Not exactly soft targets, but soft enough. Moreover, it was dark. RG 405 had every advantage.
The colonel gathered the men and spoke to them in a soft voice. “This is how we do it.”
It would be a flood approach. They’d near the house on three sides, the back naturally covered by the cliff. They would approach to within twenty-five meters and then throw smoke grenades close to the house, thus screening the windows. Under the cover of the smoke, they’d advance further, coming to within a few meters. From there, massive firepower from the front would force those inside to the ground for cover, and from each side a demolition man would approach and throw flash-bangs through the windows. Upon detonation, the rest of the unit would storm the hut, kick the doors in, and eliminate the targets. They could make a mess of it and riddle the bodies with bullets if they saw fit. They weren’t sticking around to clean it up.
Simple plans worked best. This one was solid and there were no objections. There was no need for complexity. The only modification was to leave a man back to cover the advance, someone with an overview of the entire meadow. Scharkov accepted the suggestion, even if it slightly reduced the firepower up front.
“Any questions?”
There were no questions.
“Reassemble here after action,” he said. “Then we hotfoot over the mountain’s hump and down the north side to the extraction point.” He didn’t tell them that the time of extraction was uncertain and that they might need to hungrily wait out the night for the helo. They could handle it.
“Move out.”
WHEN RHYS HEARD the Russians in the distance, he dropped to the ground and rolled on his back. The stars were out, a gazillion of them. The Milky Way splattered across the sky and a billion other stars flickered, creating a dome above him. The gear in his back jacket pouch bore into him and ruined any sense of serenity he had hoped to gather by looking up at the stars. He should have ditched the jacket, or at least all the crap he had been lugging around all day. He rolled again to his stomach and slithered to the edge of the cliff so he could see across the meadow below. Immediately he realized the flaw of their plan. The starlight wasn’t enough to illuminate the meadow. He couldn’t see a damn thing let alone aim. His first shot was to be Manny’s signal, but he didn’t know when to fire. Worse, he didn’t even know if Manny was in position.
His chin continued to drip blood. He rolled his bandana and tied it around his neck, putting pressure on the wound. That slowed the bleeding, but the bandana quickly soaked through. Fuck it, he thought. He wasn’t going to die from it. The grazing on his thigh hurt more and Rhys feared it had become infected. It throbbed and hurt like hell.
He held the AK-9 in one hand and reached down with his other to feel the Glock in his jacket pocket. The Glock was familiar and gave him comfort, though the scoped AK-9 would be far more accurate, despite his unfamiliarity with it.
He looked through the AK’s scope. It was a Barska scope, made by an American company, a fact Rhys found ironic. He figured Russian Special Forces could choose whatever damn scope they wanted and the poor fellow who lost this one chose a Barska, despite its limited maximum 4X magnification. Rhys knew Spetsnaz guys didn’t need much magnification beyond that. You didn’t shoot an AK-9 to hit some asshole over 500 yards away.
Through the scope Rhys saw dark fuzz behind an illuminated mil-dot reticle. The dots were red, which actually helped provide contours to the darkness behind it. He adjusted the knobs and did his best to bring the field into focus. It didn’t help much. The field of view it offered was too limited and dark to reveal any targets.
He went back to his naked eye and scanned the meadow and the forest beyond.
Was that discoloration there before?
He returned to the scope and after a time was able to put the center red dot on the questionable spot in the middle of the meadow.
Maybe it had already been there. It was darker than the surrounding area, but it wasn’t moving. Or was it?
He scanned the grass again with his eye. There were more spots, all dark, that he hadn’t noticed before. Then again, his pupils continued to dilate and his night vision improved as he waited. Perhaps he was just now seeing discolorations that had already been there.
God dammit.
VALENTIN PRIMAKOV KEPT returning his attention to the top of the cliff. Georgy Stepashin was up there, or so Scharkov said, but it didn’t feel right. Through the scope, Primakov saw the head of a figure. Stepashin had, for some reason, covered his face with a cloth of some sort. Maybe there was an explanation, but Primakov couldn’t think of one. Then Primakov considered the hair. It was wrong. It wasn’t trimmed and dark, like Georgy’s, but wild, shooting out in different directions. What that meant was that Georgy was dead and that the team was crawling into an ambush.
Primakov was positioned between two trees, one in front, one behind, at the edge of the copse of trees. He was in a three-point shooter’s stance, the toe and knee of his right leg on the ground, his left foot was flat, providing stability. The target on the cliff was but a hundred meters away, so he lowered the magnification of his scope. He brought the new, wider field of view into focus and centered the reticle on the man’s head.
Take the shot.
If I take the shot, he thought, the entire dynamics of the approach changed.
He radioed Scharkov. “Potential target on cliff. Requesting permission to engage.”
The response was delayed. Scharkov also knew the shot would change everything.
“Granted, Primakov. Take it.”
Primakov took a long, slow breath through his nose and began his exhale. The reticle was steady on the target. He saw the barrel of an AK
pointing at him, a fact that made him twitch, just enough to move the reticle a few centimeters off target. He brought it back on target—and the tree behind which he was positioned exploded.
MANNY WAITED THROUGH the Spetsnaz preparations. He heard the commands expressed in a low voice just above a whisper. There was a quiet back and forth, followed by what seemed like agreement. Manny didn’t know a word of Russian and understood nothing of what was said. He didn’t have to. He’d been involved in similar discussions himself and knew they were crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s.
He began to move slowly, ever so slowly, first his right arm, which pulled in his M40A5 at a rate of an inch every two seconds. He turned his head, stretched his aching neck, and rose slowly onto his elbows as he brought the rifle into position.
He could see well enough. The grass rug under which he lay stayed in place, but by rising he opened a window through which he could extend his rifle and see, whether he was scanning with his naked eyes or peering through the scope.
RG 405 had spread out and were advancing toward the hut. They walked slow and low into the meadow, their guns tightly held in their hands. The few trees that separated his clearing from the meadow occasionally broke his line of fire, but as the men walked they reappeared and into his reticle. He’d have his shots.
He knew to wait for Rhys’ opening shot, but there were limits. He couldn’t wait all night. He’d have to fire before they advanced too far into the darkness.
He aimed the rifle at the hut and scoped the window. It was dark inside, but a fluttering curtain suggested movement and life inside. The window, he saw, was open a crack. A good sign. The marine inside was ready to shoot. He’d know when. If Rhys didn’t fire the opening shot, the marine would. Then all hell would break loose.
Manny moved the rifle and aimed the scope at the top of the escarpment. It took a little while, but he eventually saw Rhys with his incomparable rat’s nest hair. More good news. Rhys wasn’t dead, which meant he didn’t have to fight this battle on his own.
Time to shoot. Rhys and the marine inside would aim at the guys in front, so Manny took the rear. He aimed between two trees and settled the reticle on the last man back. As he dialed into focus, a huge dark blur jetted across the scope’s circular field of view, indicating something was between him and his target. He broke away from the scope and saw not twenty yards in front of him a man settling into position between two trees. He held a long-ass sniper rifle.
How could I have missed the cover man?
Manny rotated his gun to take him, but the guy was had positioned himself between trees so as to protect his rear. Getting an angle on him would mean moving and revealing his hide. He’d get the sniper, but he’d then be exposed and an easy target for anyone with an AK. He considered aiming at the sniper rifle’s barrel, the one area that was exposed from Manny’s current position. It would be a hell of a shot, even at the short distance. He had to chance it. If he missed, the surprise might at least jolt the sniper out of position. Manny’s second shot would get him.
Manny zeroed on the rifle’s muzzle, which, Manny realized, was pointing up toward the top of the cliff. The bullet was aimed at Rhys.
Manny didn’t bother to wait for his breathing. He squeezed the trigger.
C
HAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SCHARKOV, POSITIONED FIFTY meters to the east of the hut, heard the shot. The rifle cracked, but the muzzle blast was suppressed and the suppression had a signature different than Primakov’s rifle. Moreover, within the echo of the shot, the splitting of wood could be heard, clearly a bullet boring into a tree trunk.
Then the world around Scharkov flashed in a series of rifle shots coming from all directions: from the top of the cliff to the meadow below, from his own men as they returned tracers up the cliff, from the window of the hut to his men firing the tracers. Behind him, where Primakov was set up, additional shots suggested that two men with large-bore weapons were firing at each other.
It was a clusterfuck. His men were caught in the open and were being fired upon from three directions. They had gone to ground and were returning fire blindly, hoping to get close enough to get their antagonists to break off.
Scharkov didn’t panic. The initial volley would soon end because the Americans couldn’t possibly have enough ammunition. Sure enough, the firing slowed, then stopped altogether. Scharkov could hear a cacophony of metal clacking against metal as men at different distances reloaded. He demanded a status check. The results mitigated the disaster. All of his men reported in. The fusillade had done nothing other than momentarily slowed the advance while at the same time revealing the positions of the enemy. His men remained cloaked in darkness.
“Team 1 leader,” he barked into his comm gear,“ send two men up the cliff. Take out their shooter. Primakov, secure the rear. The rest of you, hold tight. Let the darkness be your ally. And for God’s sake stop shooting tracers unless you want to reveal your positions!”
TYLER HAD FIRED as soon as he heard the boom of the M40, a well-known sound in the United States Marine Corps. He didn’t really have targets, but he fired where he thought he had seen movement. The tracers then came into play and he did his best to aim at their origins, but having no tracers of his own, he might as well have been shooting blindfolded.
The Tereshchenkos had returned to the safe room through the hatch in the wooden floor. When Lucinda closed the lid over them, the last things she saw was the family huddled together in candle light as they looked up at her beseechingly. Svitlana tried to look stoic, Maksym tried to be supportive, and Pavlo tried to hide his fear. They all failed. They had that Ukrainian fatalism, built into their DNA by millennia of being controlled by others. They knew this was the end.
Lucinda had given them a Beretta without explanation. Let them decide their own fate. Either they’d turn it on themselves, though Lucinda doubted either Maksym or Svitlana had the strength to kill the other, let alone Pavlo. More probably, they’d point it up when the Russians raised the hatch, provoking a quick, overwhelming reaction. Perhaps the least bad of the possible scenarios.
The shooting stopped. The hut smelled of cordite and fear. Ever-calm Colin pulled Stirewalt by the wrist, forcing her to the ground. He turned her head toward him until they made eye contact.
“Lucinda, they might torch the place when they’re done. Our people will be in eventually. Leave them a message. Write out what you know, put it in something metal, something that won’t burn. Leave ‘em clues.”
Stirewalt did what she was told. She grabbed a legal pad and virgin yellow number 2 pencil and lay on the floor, forcing herself to fight through the distractions. She scribbled away, more than once scratching through the paper. The sound of lead on paper was soothing, helping her to drown out the chaos around her in the darkened hut.
Colin darted about from room to room. He looked out each window, shouting anything he saw to Tyler, who stayed in the main room with the big gun. Invariably he saw nothing, but it too was a way to keep busy. It almost gave the others the illusion that they had any control over what was happening.
“Get me a target, Colin.” Tyler’s voice was elevated; he too was scared and he desperately wanted to channel the fear into his trigger finger.
RHYS EMPTIED HIS clip and reloaded immediately. The AK-9 was intuitive, which overcame his unfamiliarity with it.
Time is not on our side, he thought. The damn SEALS didn’t make it; they were probably just now loading into a bird that was still a hundred miles away.
He repeatedly touched his hand to his chin, hoping for any feeling at all. It was swollen and numb. The scar would be hideous and he doubted the Agency would pay to clean it up. His thigh hurt and his legs were stiff, full of lactic acid.
Why didn’t I consider the darkness? He just figured he and Manny would have targets. It’d be a turkey shoot in an Alpine meadow.
Doing nothing and waiting for the sun to rise wasn’t much of an option. If he didn’t start firing
now, the Russians would continue their advance and be at the hut in a minute. He scoped the area below and found a dark area the size of a man. Here you go, friend.
He fired off a trio of shots and ducked back behind the lip. Sure enough, shots blasted from below and he heard them hitting the rock just a couple of feet below where he lay. Then the sound of a different weapon, and from its suppressed sound Rhys knew it was inside the hut. The marine was shooting.
It hadn’t really been his plan, but it worked. His shots provoked the Russians, and their muzzle blasts gave the marine a target.
He fired another three, ducked back. There was no answer this time and Rhys figured they had learned from their mistake. Damn.
He lay on his back breathing hard. The ground was uneven, rocky, even painful. Something was boring into his back so hard he scooted over a foot, looking for a place where he could get flat. It wasn’t much better. In fact, whatever it was still digging into his back. What the hell? He rolled to his stomach and felt the weight on his lower back. It wasn’t a rock he was lying on, it was something in the back pouch of his jacket.
He reached back, unzipped the pocket, and blindly reached inside and grabbed something. It had a grip, like a gun, but not like any gun he had held before. He pulled it out and stared at it disbelievingly.
It was bright yellow.
A flare gun!
Well, fuck me if that isn’t the most useful gun in this fight. He studied the double-barreled gun. It was fat and short, with two large cartridges positioned side by side. It was simple. It had a safety and a trigger.
Rhys flicked the safety, raised the gun above his head and fired straight up.
C
HAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE MOST UNEXPECTED sunrise in the history of Alps occurred in the middle of the night. It bathed the meadow in bright blue light and completely flummoxed Tyler. His awe was only tempered by what the sudden daylight produced: targets. In the meadow below, Tyler saw half a dozen dark-clad figures lying in the grass. He whipped the gun into position, centered the reticle on the first, and squeezed the trigger. He moved to the next, utterly exposed, and hit him, too. He moved to a third.
