by Ken Goddard
No way…not after this storm,he told himself, feeling the downdraft as the LVPD helicopter roared overhead and then made a sudden sharp turn to the south.
But then he saw one of the figures in the middle of the clearing suddenly run forward, kneel down, and spray a wide circle on the rocky ground, and his jaw dropped.
Christ, that’s right where I—
At that instant, Mialkovsky heard the familiar distinct rumble of an Army MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter coming in fast from the west, its four composite rotor blades clawing at the thin mountain air as it roared overhead, swooped down—disgorging two dark figures in the middle of the clearing, who instantly flattened to the rocky ground; two more a hundred yards farther to the south; and a final two at the eastern edge of the clearing—and then banked away sharply, roaring up into the darkness.
Instantly switching into combat mode, Mialkovsky reflexively fed a hollow-pointed round into the chamber of his rifle, vaguely aware that the CSI figure closest to him was now running frantically toward the far eastern edge of the clearing where it connected to the trail…followed a second later by another figure who lunged up and began running in the same direction.
Perfect. Keep on going….
A half-second later, Mialkovsky had the first figure in the crosshairs of his nightscope, the better part of his mind aware—and methodically recording—that a second Pave Hawk was dropping three more shooter-spotter teams high into the rocky mountain some five hundred yards north, northwest, and east of his position. He was starting to squeeze the trigger—having already made the tactical decision that caring for five wounded CSIs would provide a useful distraction for the hunter-killer teams whose primary mission was undoubtedly to hunt and kill him—when the equally familiar but far more chilling roar of a very different helicopter caused him to instinctively flatten down into his boulder-protected enclave.
He sensed—but didn’t dare look up to see—the pilot of the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter come in very low and not all that fast over the clearing, daring Mialkovsky to try for a shot at one of the armored aircraft’s very few vulnerable points…and, in doing so, expose himself to boulder-shredding mayhem of the under-the-fuselage-mounted 30-mm chain gun manned by the Apache’s undoubtedly smiling copilot-gunner.
Viktor Mialkovsky wasn’t even remotely suicidal, so he stayed down for the four to five seconds it took the Apache to transverse the clearing. Then he brought his head back up, regained his target—and saw the face of Gil Grissom suddenly appear in a distant, billowing, and seemingly hallucinogenic flash of pale green light, like a hovering forensic conscience, in the background of his nightscope.
Mialkovsky recoiled in shock…recovered…and then squeezed the trigger at the very instant a dark camouflaged arm reached out and yanked the frantically running figure to the ground behind a large rock.
Rapidly feeding another round into his rifle, Mialkovsky brought the second running figure into his crosshairs, squeezed off a second round, instinctively reloaded…and then felt a sudden sense of eerie calm, as if the entire scene had gone deadly still the moment his first bullet ricocheted off the distant boulder in the middle of the clearing. He could easily imagine the excited words being exchanged between the hunter-killer teams:
Incoming fire…two shots…two civilians down.
Where’s the shooter?
Don’t know.
Anybody see him?
A series of single radio clicks signaled negative responses.
And then the platoon leader’s terse order:
All teams, maintain radio discipline. Locate source of incoming fire, engage target, and pin him down, now.
Mialkovsky felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream as he waited for the first sign of movement, knowing that the directional vector of the first leapfrogging sniper team would reveal the platoon leader’s chosen tactics. He had played this role countless times in his career, almost always to the chagrin of the opposing trainee-lieutenant. But that had been with simunitions—high-velocity paint bullets that had left the methodically outwitted and exposed hunter-killer teams with physical bruises to go along with their all-too-visible impact splotches and mental pain. Live 7.62 ball ammo was a different situation entirely.
And that was Mialkovsky’s significant advantage: the fact that he’d perfected his tactical skills in the high mountains of Afghanistan, against men whose patience and expertise with long-range rifles easily matched his own. It had been arrogance as much as anything else—their sense of religious superiority, and their refusal to take their adversary seriously—that had doomed those Taliban snipers, one after the other; a mistake he was certain this particular platoon leader wouldn’t make.
But even the best hunter-killer tactics will fail if the teams hesitate,Mialkovsky reminded himself, smiling as he imagined the young soldiers’ responses to what was very likely their first exposure to incoming live fire from an unknown vector.
He remained completely immobile for another thirty seconds…watching and waiting…and then finally nodded in understanding.
Not moving in on me yet. Trying to gather up and protect the CSIs first. Lousy tactics. Understandable, but still lousy…leaving his teams vulnerable like that, just to protect a few civilians.
Mialkovsky smiled.
You’re losing your advantage of surprise, Lieutenant. It’s still my playground, and you’re giving me way too much time to maneuver out here.
Mialkovsky had already calculated his first series of moves, all designed to cut off and progressively harass and unnerve the three high-ground-located hunter-killer teams, all of whom had dropped awkwardly out of their Pave Hawk—brand-new trainees, and I’m their first live rabbit, poor bastards—when the familiar rumble of an Apache attack helicopter became audible again. Only this time, the sound was different…deeper…more guttural…and somehow more intense.
Two of them…and something else?
The two attack helicopters came in from opposite directions—north and south—and higher this time, the fearsome aircraft performing a lethal ballet turn over the clearing with deft twists of their composite rotor blades, and then hovering there, less than a hundred yards apart…
Daring me to engage again? Thanks, but I don’t think so,Mialkovsky thought, vaguely amused—and, admittedly, impressed—by the typical Army-macho display of brute firepower that had been sent over the Sheep Range to deal with one man and one rifle.
…as the first Pave Hawk came back in low and very fast over the clearing from the west, swooping down suddenly like a talon-armed predator reaching out for its prey…but this time disgorging only a single dark figure from its side door—at a point approximately two hundred yards northwest of Mialkovsky’s position—before it roared up and away under the protective lethality of the two hovering Apaches.
Unlike the three sniper teams, who had revealed with their hesitating movements their limited degree of training and experience, this lone dark figure had exited the helicopter fast, like a Navy rescue diver, and then seemed to disassemble or evaporate in midair before hitting the ground.
Shit,Mialkovsky cursed as he began to move backwards in quick, crablike movements until he was completely turned around and facing his escape route.
The series of cat-and-mouse games that Mialkovsky had envisioned with some amusement—utilizing his tactical advantages and expertise against the hunter-killer trainees based at the Nellis Test and Training Range for some undetermined time period before he finally broke off the lethal exercise and disappeared into the mountains—had completely vanished from his conscious mind…much like the fleeting image of the single rifle-armed figure who, he guessed, was probably now less than a hundred and eighty yards away, and likely closing in fast.
First Sergeant Viktor Mialkovsky realized that he’d been effectively outthought and outmaneuvered, not by a trainee sniper-platoon-leading lieutenant, but by a far more experienced and deadly man very much like himself.
Thought yo
u’d have gone back home by now, you cold-hearted bastard,Mialkovsky mused as he quickly secured the thin desert-patterned thermal blanket and camouflage net tighter around his body, knowing that he didn’t dare get caught on a protruding branch. Not with Major Ken Park out here in the darkness, homing in on his position like a top-of-the-food-chain predator. Park, the widely renowned and feared South Korean Army sniper instructor—on loan from the ROK—who disdained the use of spotters because he believed they got in his way. The only hunter-killer who had ever defeated First Sergeant Mialkovsky in the advanced sniper tactical exercises…not once, but twice.
But that had occurred within in the limited perimeter of the Nellis Test and Training Range, using simunition rounds in time-limited scenarios, and with vigilant referees to keep the all-too-real exercises from getting out of control.
No limits and no referees today, Major. Just you and…and the trainees you’re honor-bound to protect because you deliberately put them at risk in order to save a handful of civilians,Mialkovsky thought with an oddly mixed sense of hope and fatalism as he first made a final survey of the equipment he would use to make his escape, and then checked his watch.
Time was the only weapon he now possessed that offered him any advantage against a master hunter-killer like Park…and he sensed it was rapidly ticking away.
Time to move…now.
21
FOCUSED ON THEIR DETERMINED HUNTfor any sign of blue fluorescence among the thousands of rocks scattered across the mountainside clearing, and having grown accustomed to the rumbling drone of the LVPD Search and Rescue helicopter overhead, the arrival of the first military Pave Hawk helicopter—signaled by the thunderous roar of its powerful twin engines as it came in low, fast, and blacked-out from the west—caught Grissom, Nick, Sara, Lakewell, and Carson in their spaced-apart locations completely by surprise.
Had the five law enforcement investigators possessed the survival instincts and military training of Viktor Mialkovsky, or the hunter-killer teams who had come to deal with him, the sudden, terrifying arrival of the huge and nearly invisible helicopter would have immediately sent them diving to the ground and scrambling toward the biggest boulder they could find.
But lacking those instincts and training, the five investigators all simply squatted down, turned in the direction of the noise, and stared curiously up into the darkness, completely unaware that night-cammo-uniformed soldiers had been pouring out of the blacked-out airship…until urgent voices began yelling, “Get down!”
Nick, Sara, Lakewell, and Carson all obeyed instantly, the low-frequencywhump-whump reverberations of the four military assault helicopters and the single LVPD airship now echoing crazily among the huge rocks and boulders—not to mention the terrifying images of lethal rotor blades slicing through the thin mountain air just over their heads—providing more than enough incentive to send them diving for the rocky ground and searching frantically for solid cover.
Gil Grissom was equally unnerved by the horrific noises and images, but as he flattened down and started to crawl toward the nearest large boulder, he saw—from his new position—a rapidly fading glow of blue fluorescence beneath a large flat rock about twenty feet away.
Determined not to lose what might turn out to be a critical piece of evidence, Grissom scurried toward the faint glow, trying to stay as low to the ground as possible, and then lunged forward with the spray can outstretched in his right hand, sending a burst of brightly fluorescing green paint into the air over the faint blue glow—and unknowingly illuminating himself in the process—as the powerful downdraft from the churning Army MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter barely twenty feet overhead slammed him down hard onto the rocky ground.
Frightened by the eardrum-pounding air assault in the darkness overhead, Sara Sidle was still scrambling on her hands and knees toward what looked like the slightly less dark mass of a protective boulder when her night-blinded eyes were suddenly drawn to a small burst of fluorescent green light about seventy-five yards east of her position.
To her stunned amazement, the light from the brightly glowing—albeit wildly swirling and dissipating—aerosol cloud showed Gil Grissom being hammered to the ground by a huge, dark, and rapidly moving mass that appeared to be swooping down and across his sprawled body like some kind of monstrous raptor.
“Gil!” Sara screamed. And then, without pausing to think about the consequences, she leaped up and began running desperately in Grissom’s direction, never seeing the dark camouflaged arm that suddenly lunged out and yanked her sideways off her feet.
About eight yards to the north of Sidle’s position, Shanna Lakewell heard—and then vaguely saw—Sara Sidle sprinting toward the distant glowing cloud of bright green paint. Hesitating only a second, she, too, lunged to her feet and began running in the direction of the vaporous light that was rapidly dissipating into a widespread will-o’-the-wisp, the faint particles of light drifting to the ground like the remnants of a spent flare.
Like Sara Sidle, Lakewell never saw the hand that suddenly lunged out to grab her left arm…but she definitely felt the sharp explosion of pain as the high-powered and hollow-pointed rifle bullet ripped through her upper right shoulder, the savage impact wrenching her around and forcing a grunt of agonized shock from her lungs as the dark camouflaged figure dragged her behind a protective bounder.
Awash in pain from her torn and shattered nerves, Lakewell vaguely heard the young soldier cursing into his radio mike. She was trying to concentrate on the words—realizing they had something to do with her—when the pain was suddenly muted and then overwhelmed by a sense of soothing and all-encompassing darkness.
Still stunned and aching from the impact of the Pave Hawk helicopter’s ferocious downwash, Grissom was in the process of pushing himself up off the rocky ground when a large human body suddenly landed on his back, slamming his upper torso once more into the bed of sharp-edged rocks and forcing the air out of his lungs for the second time in a very few seconds. Gasping in shock as his protesting lungs fought for air, Grissom tried unsuccessfully to twist himself out from under the crushing weight, and then yelled in surprise and pain when an incredibly strong gloved hand ripped the spray-paint can out of his grasp.
“Sorry, sir,” a deep voice growled behind his right ear. “Didn’t mean to hurt you, but I can’t let you squirt that damned thing again. You lit up the neighborhood like a frigging bordello.”
“What—?” Grissom rasped in confusion, relieved to feel his lungs expand again as the man quickly rolled away…but kept a second gloved hand pressed on his back.
“You need to keep your head down, sir,” the deep voice ordered.
“Okay, I will,” Grissom promised in a weak voice, wondering as he did so how many of his ribs were broken, “but—who are you, and what’s happening out here?”
“Sergeant First Class Gardez, sir. Platoon sergeant, First Platoon, Sniper Training Company. We’re here to evacuate your team from the area ASAP.”
“You mean away from our crime scene?” Grissom wasn’t sure he’d heard the soldier correctly.
“Roger that, sir; now just relax for a second and keep your head down,” Gardez said as he reached out and physically dragged Grissom over to a nearby boulder where another soldier was busy talking on his radio mike. “This is Lieutenant Maddox, commander of First Platoon,” Gardez added. “I’m sure he’ll explain everything.” With that, the platoon sergeant disappeared into the darkness.
Grissom reached up with shaky hands and readjusted his night-vision goggles over his eyes, allowing him to finally see the greenish shape of a camouflaged soldier who—in spite of the apparent weight of command on his haggard-looking face—looked all of twenty-two years old.
Grissom waited until the young officer stopped talking on his radio, and then cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” the CSI supervisor said, wincing at the unpleasant effect talking had on his aching ribs, “can you tell me what’s going on here?”
“
Who are you?” Maddox asked, sounding very distracted.
“I’m Gil Grissom, night-shift CSI supervisor for LVPD…and we’re supposed to be working a crime scene up here on what I believe is a federal wildlife refuge. Are we in the wrong place?”
“Yes, sir, you are definitely that,” Maddox said. “Wrong place at the wrong time; but it’s not your fault.”
“Then…whose fault is it?” Grissom asked reasonably.
“That would be First Sergeant Viktor Mialkovsky,” the platoon leader answered, and then said something rapidly into his radio that Grissom couldn’t quite comprehend.
“And why is this Sergeant Mialkovsky’s fault?” Grissom pressed, thinking that he’d heard that name somewhere before.
“Well, mostly because we think he’s trying to kill you and your team.”
“Kill…us?” Grissom stared blankly at the young, green-faced officer. “Why would he want to do that?”
“I have no idea, sir,” Maddox answered. “But it’s definitely not a good thing, because First Sergeant Mialkovsky is, among many other things, a professional hunter-killer who is very good at eliminating people. Just about the best there is, in fact…except for Major Park,” the platoon leader amended.
“And who is Major Park?” Grissom asked, not sure that he really wanted to know.
“He’s the bad-ass ROK hunter-killer we just inserted between us and Mialkovsky a couple of minutes ago.”
Grissom had no idea what those words meant.
“Is that a good thing?” he finally asked.
“Yes, sir, it very definitely is a good thing, because now Park and Mialkovsky are going to be real busy trying to kill each other; and that gives the rest of us a chance to get you and your team out of here before anyone else gets hurt.”
