Rebel Blast

by Don Pendleton

  “But what has that to do with the tanks?” Adamenko asked, puzzled.

  Orlov shook his head. “Russian tanks are still old-fashioned in some ways. They may have a more sophisticated setup than before, but it still works in a similar way. If we use our main transmitter to scan the available radio frequencies, we can find their communications and so talk to them.”

  Adamenko was about to ask if it may not be quicker and easier to walk out himself with a white flag and a message when his thoughts—and their progress—were interrupted by the approach of a rebel fighter.

  “Blokhin? Why are you not in position?” Orlov asked as the man hurriedly neared them.

  Blokhin shook his head. “No time. Something strange happening.” He was breathless, and it took him several gulps of air before he was able to continue. “I have had people ask me about the number of our men who have been seen heading toward the old warehouses, and why they are leading a group of civilians.”

  Orlov was puzzled. He looked at Adamenko and could see that the giant was just as baffled. “How many of us?” he questioned, and when the breathless Blokhin held up six fingers, he continued. “That’s ridiculous—half of our personnel. Did they recognize any of our men?”

  Blokhin looked puzzled. “They didn’t say. I didn’t think to ask. Why?”

  Orlov was about to speak, but seemingly changed his mind. Shaking his head, he said, “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that these men have nothing to do with us. I want you to get on the radio and draw as many men as possible to that sector. Get them to leave the citizens organizing their own security.”

  “Who are they?” Blokhin queried.

  “They must be Russians,” Orlov explained briefly. “It doesn’t matter who. All that matters is that we stop and contain them. We must not press them too hard, as we can’t risk the Americans being hurt.”

  “The Americans? Then—”

  Orlov interrupted. “The shelling was a cover for them to extract the Americans so that they can flatten the town. If we stop them leaving, then we stop an attack. Go now and deal with this while I speak with the tank commander.”

  The rebel could see how perilous the situation was, and as he turned away his face was colored with fear, even as he stuck to his task. Orlov beckoned the giant to follow him and made his way into the building where he had taken over the mayor’s old office, the central transmitter for the radio comm system being set up here.

  The operator looked up at him, expectant, as he entered. There was something about his bearing now that suggested purpose. He asked the radio operator to open as many channels and broadcast across as wide a frequency band as possible before beginning.

  “This is Aleksandr Orlov, Commander of the Chechen National Socialist Army. Identify the frequency on which you wish to speak, and I will switch to it. We must talk before any further action is taken....”

  * * *

  “yOU SEE, DAMAN? All good things come to those who wait,” General Azhkov said with a smile as the message came over the comm system. “Is it me, or is that a man who sounds desperate?”

  Tankian wasn’t sure that he would entirely agree. The voice on the radio sounded urgent but not as panicked as he would have expected from a man who was about to face annihilation.

  General Azhkov indicated to his radio operator to send the correct frequency and leave the channel open, which he did. He waited patiently until he heard the rebel leader announce himself once more. Then he beckoned to his operator, and took the handset himself.

  “I am General Sergei Azhkov, and I have a load of hardware trained right on you and your town. I am not in the mood to waste words. I don’t know what you expect from the Russian government, and to tell the truth, I don’t care. But I will tell you what will happen. In the morning, I will be ordered to fire on you, and to keep firing, clearing a path for my command to advance and roll over Argun-Martan. As you retreat into the open, you will be picked off by fighter jets.”

  “So nice of you to tell me what our fate will be.” Orlov’s voice crackled evenly over the static. “There is just one thing that may stop you in this plan.”

  Azhkov gave Tankian a look that indicated his disbelief. “Believe me, my friend, there is nothing that can stop me. It is not down to me,” he said with heavy emphasis. “This will happen. I showed you what it will be like in order for you to talk as I do not want to kill innocent townspeople—”

  “No, you listen, Sergei Azhkov, and I, Alexsandr Orlov, will tell you how it is. You shell us to provide a diversion for your men to come into the town and take the Americans. But they are not with you, are they?”

  “You foolish little man, what are you talking about?” Azhkov raged. “I am offering you a chance to head off your inevitable destruction, and all you can do is try to feed me some shit about my people taking the Americans... You idiot, I do not care about the Americans, and if you think the president does—”

  “The president has spoken to me, and I have explained to him what it is that the Americans know, and what that is worth both to Russia and America, as well as to the Chechen people. He would not—”

  “Shut up, you complete prick,” Azhkov raged. Despite the constrictions of space within the tank, the general was on his feet, his arms waving wildly in frustration. “What part of what I have told you do you not grasp? The president does not care about the Americans. He will blame their deaths on you and be believed, as you have allowed a whole town to be flattened. I am offering you a chance to come to agreement and withdraw before I have to grind you to dust and leave the remains for trigger-happy pilots.”

  “The more you rage, the more you show your frustration at your plan not working,” Orlov’s voice crackled back. “We have your men cornered and the Americans will soon be back within our grasp. Once this is achieved, your plans will not matter. Tell your president that we will negotiate with him alone, and not with some middleman.”

  The radio went dead, with not even the crackle of empty air to indicate any presence.

  “The prick has turned off his radio,” Azhkov murmured in astonishment, staring at the radio transmitter and shaking his head in disbelief. “Is he in denial or is he just insane?”

  “I don’t know, Sergei,” Tankian said. “What the hell was he talking about? Our men trying to take the Americans... What the hell does he mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Azhkov replied in a voice that was flat and yet teetered on the edge of barely controlled menace. “He is either completely crazy, or there is something going on that we do not know about.”

  “Could the U.S. government have sent in a team to extract the Americans?”

  Azhkov shook his head. “It is, I suppose, a possibility. But a remote one. How could anyone move in this area without us having some kind of indication? He is bluffing.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, why would he do that?”

  Azhkov turned to face Tankian, and his slablike face was filled with a cold fury that made Tankian’s blood run to ice.

  “Because he is an opportunist. Because he thinks I am an idiot. Because he is deluded. I do not know, and frankly neither do I care. He takes me for an idiot, when it is him who is foolish. He had his chance. He’s blown it. Now I will blow him off the face of the earth.”

  Snatching up the radio handset once more, General Azhkov yelled orders.

  * * *

  ORLOV CUT COMMUNICATIONS and turned to Adamenkov, his face black with fury. “Who does this prick think he is? Does he really think that we will believe him? Come, Viktor, the only way we are going to make him take us seriously is if we cut off the heads of the soldiers he has sent in, and send them back to him on poles. Then he will know that we are not to be messed with.”

  The giant grinned. At last he would have the chance to take out some of his frustration over the night’s event
s. The idea of being able to kill and mutilate some Russians calmed him inside. He followed Orlov out onto the street, breathing slowly but heavily as he built himself up into the kind of rage he would need.

  As the two rebels strode through the streets, they could see that the route toward the industrial area of town was devoid of their own men, as they were greeted by small groups of townspeople who were armed and patrolling their own streets. Orlov felt a warm glow at their greeting. This kind of cooperation between Chechens was exactly what he had been looking for all his life. The fact that his own men—an occupying force according to the hated Russians—could leave the town unguarded and the citizens would step into the breach only showed how out of touch the fool Russian president was with the people of Chechnya. When this matter had been resolved, and he was able to grow from Argun-Martan the seeds of a genuine revolution, then he would show that idiot Russian what the Chechen people could achieve.

  He was still fuming, and lost in these thoughts, as he and Adamenko approached the deserted industrial area of town. Not, perhaps, so deserted: there was the intermittent chatter of automatic rifle fire. It was sporadic, and to anyone versed in combat spoke of a cagey exchange between an attacking force and one that had dug itself in well.

  “We have them pinned down,” Orlov said to his companion, but could see from the faraway look in the giant’s eyes that he was already focused on attack. This, then, should not take long.

  As they came in sight of their men, they could see that they had spread around the perimeter of a disused factory unit. They had the Americans and the Russians who had taken them trapped. Now it was just a matter of smoking them out—literally. Orlov directed the giant to get a gas mask and an SMG, and told his men to lay down covering fire after firing gas and smoke grenades into the building. Adamenko was his blunt force attack weapon, and this was the perfect time to use him.

  It was a simple plan, and would have been effective if not for one thing: as his men moved to fire the grenades, and before the first one had even left its launcher, the night sky howled with the sound of a barrage of shells cutting through the air. Moments later that was followed by a series of explosions that rent the air around them and made the ground shake violently. Darkness turned to light as a rain of fire began to sweep the far end of town, the flames lighting the factory and grounds in front of them.

  Orlov realized that Azhkov had not believed him for one reason alone: whoever was in there had nothing to do with the Russians. But it was far too late to worry about that now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bolan had realized that things were going wrong from the moment that they started to see people on the streets again. Despite the men on point, it was hard to keep a tight hold on the group as some of them were flagging under the physical and mental pressure of trying to escape. The pace that Bolan had set was hard—it had to be—and yet it was proving to be just that little too much for some. As a result, they had started to string out along the streets rather than keep together, and even though the point men had managed to scout a clear path, those at the rear had attracted attention.

  The locals who came out were waved back, imprecations in Chechen assuring them that all was well and that they should stay inside as directed. That may have been enough. Bolan was all too aware that any one of them could raise an alarm, ask enough of a question to bring the rebels down on them. There didn’t seem a large force in the town, and maybe his men could take them. But maybe was not enough when he had the survey team to protect and evacuate. They needed to move fast.

  As they reached the deserted factories and industrial warehouses that populated the outer reaches of the town, Bolan became aware that they were being shadowed. Ahead and alongside them, in and out of the darkness, he could see that rebel fighters were moving in on them, getting ahead where they were faster and more mobile. That was a problem. Word passed between his men showed that they were also aware, and that the two point men were concerned they could not guarantee safe passage. Bolan checked his watch. Time was tight enough as it was; they couldn’t afford to be held up any more.

  He wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter. The crackle of gunfire in the silence of the night, the whine of brickwork chips as the bullets flew high and wide and the muted squeals and shouts of the survey team told him that they would have to find a place to stand and fight. And, if they got through this, hope that Jack Grimaldi could hang around for them if the numbers counted down to zero.

  An answering chatter of gunfire from Krilov and Dostoyevsky stopped the enemy bullets for a moment. There was a factory building a few hundred yards from where they stood: the gates were broken, and beyond Bolan could see—even in the dark—that the entrance had long been left open and exposed. Once inside he could put a man on it. The key was to get the civilians under cover and then work on picking off the opposition. To lure them to his men was just about his only option right now.

  Yelling at the survey team to move, Bolan directed the group toward the grounds of the factory. Looking around, even with infrared night vision it would have been almost impossible to pick out the rebel fighters as they used the cover of the surrounding buildings with the kind of skill he would have expected from their knowledge of the area. Once inside it would be a different matter.

  Although he only had six men, the Executioner knew that there were no more than a dozen of the rebels out there. If they wanted to get the survey team back, they could play the long game or be forced to mount a full-on attack across ground that would leave them exposed as they came. Bolan knew that the presence of the Russian tanks would force their hand.

  It was hard to get the survey team across the grounds of the factory in any kind of order. The sporadic fire that kicked up divots all around them caused some of them to panic and try to run. It was Bulgarin who proved his worth by shepherding them into the entrance. Bolan got his men to take the former hostages to the upper level of the building, with Krilov marshaling them onto the top floor while the other mercenaries took defensive positions along the way. The men who had taken point were the last to enter, and Bolan stayed on the ground floor to see them safely in before sending them up to the top. They and Bulgarin would take up defensive positions near the barred and boarded windows, visible glass smashed out so that they could sight the enemy from all four compass points. It was only when the posts had been established that Bolan joined the men on the top floor.

  The appearance of the gas-masked giant, striding across the open ground and ignoring the shots that kicked up dirt around him alerted Bolan to the coming attack. The sounds of firing and the shattering of glass and boards as the gas and smoke grenades hit home made him curse. He had gambled that they wouldn’t do this, fearing for the prize they valued so highly.

  As Bolan and his mercenaries scrambled into their gas masks, he realized that something had happened to change this rebel view. The thought was reinforced as the night erupted around them.

  As the choking clouds of smoke and gas started to fill the upper floor, thankfully dissipated enough for the survey team to breathe a little by the crosswinds seeping through the shattered windows, he was aware of the chatter of fire from below and a bellow of rage that greeted the volley.

  The giant was inside.

  The survey team was in disarray. It was Leonard’s job to keep the Americans together. His purpose: to get his people away and try to keep them safe. He was to leave the fighting to the men who were skilled and in combat. If he could keep his people together, then it would allow the others to concentrate on the attack.

  They weren’t going to make it easy. The sudden noise and fury of the tank attack combined with the incoming grenades had hit Simmons like a sledgehammer, rousing him from his cocoon so that he suddenly rose to his feet, shouting and blindly attempting to flee. Slaughter and Winters tried to hold him back, but they were taken off guard. Shouting and crying, Simmons
cannoned into Acquero, pushing her back so that she stumbled blindly toward the window manned by Bolan.

  The survey team had been marshaled into the middle of the floor to keep them as much away from the line of fire as was possible: Simmons was almost singlehandedly trying to blow this plan out of the water. He dragged Slaughter and Winters out of the center, pushed Acquero back and then tried to change direction, causing Freeman to also break rank as he dived across the floor and grabbed Simmons around the waist, tackling him as if he was a quarterback and bringing him down to the floor. The impact was enough to knock the wind out of Simmons, quieting him.

  Damage was already done. Acquero stumbled backward across the floor, catching Bolan and knocking him so that he fired wide of the clustered rebels below. That wasn’t a problem; the fact that the move brought her in line with the open space and the gunfire that was directed at it was, however, a real problem. As random fire spattered the walls around and inside the factory, Acquero was a flailing target.

  Bolan grabbed her and pulled her to the floor. She gasped, and for a second he thought that she was hit. It was only when she tried to wriggle free that he realized the gasp had been from the impact of the fall alone. With a grin, he pushed himself up and allowed her to scrabble back to the center of the room, where Freeman was helping Leonard to keep the group together, aided by those who were keeping their cool under trying circumstances.

  Bolan was relieved to leave them to their own provenance, as there were greater problems immediately in front of him.

  He could hear the roar of the giant down one floor along with the screams of at least one of his men, shouts of pain and terror intermingled with the giant’s bellowing.