Command Authority

86

Ding Chavez led his two men to the first Eurocopter. As he climbed onto the helipad he saw the last of the Delta operators disappear into stairwells leading down to Nesterov’s suite, but he didn’t focus on the stairwells for long. He was listening in to the comms of the assaulters so he could be ready when they came back up, but for now he would ignore their transmissions so he could pay attention to his portion of the mission. Dom had a small shaped charge given to him by a Delta demolitions man, and he pulled it from his pack. Sam and Ding lifted Dom up onto their shoulders, he balanced himself on the fuselage of the helo, and then he put his boots on their shoulders and stood so he could reach the rotors. He planted the device at the base of the rotor shaft, and then he slid back down.

It took another minute to do the same to the second helo. After Dom slid back down to the helipad, all three men ran down the helipad stairs and toward one of the stairwells.

Ding had been advised to speak on the Delta communications net as little as possible, so there wouldn’t be any unnecessary cross-talk. But when he and his two mates made it into the safety of the stairwell and Dom had his detonator in his hand, Ding did broadcast: “Assault team, this is Topside. Charges are in position on the roof.”

“Roger, Topside. Confirm we are all clear of the roof. Blow them.”

“Roger that,” Ding said, and Dom turned a dial on his radio detonator.

Above them, a pair of loud booms confirmed the destruction of the rotors of the helos.

Chavez knew his portion of the mission was complete, other than the extraction, but he could hear massive amounts of gunfire two floors below. On the radio he heard the call “Wounded Eagle,” which meant one of the Delta assaulters had been injured.

Ding called into the already crowded radio traffic. “This is Topside. We’re in stairwell Bravo. We can come down and recover the wounded if you need us, over.”

“Topside, do it. Descend to stairwell on the ninth floor. We will meet you there. Do not leave the stairwell. We have a blocking force in the eighth-floor stairwell keeping enemy below us, and all persons in the ninth-floor hallway will be considered hostile and engaged.”

“Understood,” Ding said, and he, Sam, and Dom rushed down the stairs.

From the sound of the gunfire, Ding could tell the Delta blocking force below him was heavily engaged. No sooner had they arrived at the meeting point for the first wounded operator than a second Wounded Eagle call came, this one just one floor below them on the stairs. Ding sent Sam down to try to help get that man up to the roof, while he and Dom waited for the first injury to arrive from the hallway.

As the radio traffic continued at a calm but rapid clip, Dom leaned over to Ding. “Too many fucking Russians.”

“Yep,” Ding said.

The hallway door opened, and two Delta men appeared, dragging by his body armor a man with a bloody leg wound. Dom and Ding got the man to his feet and put his arms over their shoulders to support him.

The two Delta men turned to go back into the suite, but Ding said, “It sounds like it’s falling apart in the stairwell.”

A loud explosion, just below their feet, confirmed this.

One of the Delta operators said, “It’s going bad all over. Get him on the roof and then head back to help out down there.”

“Roger,” Ding said, and then he and Dom struggled to climb the stairs to the roof.

After five minutes of constant gunfire all over the upper floors of the building, Delta announced on the radio that they had Dmitri Nesterov in custody in the suite, but they were pinned down. Sam and two surviving Delta men in the stairwell had retreated up to the ninth floor just before they were overrun by dozens of Seven Strong Men gunmen, but now they were dropping frag and flash grenades down in an attempt to hold the horde of attackers back.

Dom and Ding had been pulled out of the stairwell by the Delta team leader, who told them to get into the hallway to cover the elevator. They arrived to find a dead assaulter lying in an open car, with four dead Seven Strong Men with him. The second elevator car arrived, and Dom and Ding got their guns up just in time to see a half-dozen armed men inside.

Both Americans dropped to the floor and opened fire, and each of them dumped an entire magazine into the men. When they were all down, Dom ran forward and pulled a body halfway through the door, ensuring it could not close and send the car back downstairs to pick up more enemy.

A door at the end of the hall opened suddenly, and Chavez swung to it, pulling his pistol because his rifle was empty. He saw two Delta operators pushing along a hooded man with his hands zip-tied behind his back.

Everyone with a gun in the hallway, all four men, pointed their weapons at one another. Ding was the first to lower his pistol. Into his radio, he said, “We’re friendlies!”

The Delta guys got the message quickly. They lowered their rifles and pushed the prisoner forward. Ding saw one of the assaulters had been shot himself. His right shoulder was covered in blood, and a bloody bandage was wrapped around it.

Dom was already pulling gear off the dead operator. Soon he had him over his shoulder, and he struggled back to the stairwell.

The four men had made it only a few feet toward the stairs when Sam and two Delta men came through the door. Again, everyone swung their guns up at potential targets, but quickly they recognized they were all blue forces.

Sam said, “We’re overrun in those stairs. Gotta find another way back up.”

The force of men headed back toward the entrance to the suite. Ding and Sam kept their weapons trained on the door to the stairs, and soon it burst open. The two Americans cut down the Seven Strong Men gunners there, and a Delta man threw a smoke grenade to obscure their retreat up the hall.

In the suite the team leader called over the radio. The rest of the force had managed to keep the rear stairwell clear, so everyone moved to the back of the suite, went back into an employee access area, and linked up with the Delta Force operators there.

It took nearly fifteen minutes to get everyone back to the roof. Delta had two dead and six wounded. Sam Driscoll had cuts on his face and arms from an explosion in the stairs, but Dmitri Nesterov was in hand.

The first Little Bird arrived, and the two most severely wounded were strapped on between the four lightly wounded men. The helo jolted into the air and took off for the relative safety of the river.

The Kiowa was called in next. The Campus men and the Delta operators covered the two stairwells on the roof as they waited for the helo to land.

As Conway lowered toward the roof, Page shouted into the radio, “Come right! Come right!”

Conway didn’t know what was going on, but he followed instructions. As he did so, he realized Page was grabbing his rifle off the dash and aiming it out the open door of the helicopter.

Dre Page shouted, “Pivot one-eighty and hold!”

Conway did as instructed. He was only twenty-five feet from touchdown, and by looking out past Dre he saw that a group of men had used a rope to climb onto the roof from the ninth-floor balcony. Obviously, they were doing this so they wouldn’t have to exit the stairwells, which would surely be covered.

Dre aimed his M4 rifle and opened fire on the four men. He blasted one man off the roof, and the man fell more than a hundred feet to the street below. Another man fell where he stood, dead on the roof. Two more dove behind the lip of the helipad, but the Delta assaulters on the roof saw what was happening and engaged them.

Conway landed a moment later, and a hooded prisoner was attached to his portside bench. Operators strapped in quickly; a couple of the men looked wounded, but Conway kept most of his focus on his radar and the stairwell exit right in front of the nose of his helo. He knew that at any time it could fly open and armed enemy could pour through.

Someone on the radio said, “We need thirty seconds!”

Conway called back, “Fuck thirty seconds! We’ve got to go, now!”

He looked over his shoulder and saw men firing on the other stairwell entrance. He knew at any moment bullets could start tearing through his aircraft. He grabbed his own rifle while he waited and leaned out, aiming it behind him.

Before he saw any targets, however, Page came over the radio: “We’re good my side. Three passengers locked in and ready.”

Conway saw two passengers on his side. One was the prisoner. He called to the Delta team leader. “Black Wolf Two Six. Ready to depart with five pax, including prisoner. Confirm that is correct.”

“You are correct, Two Six. Get off the fucking roof.”

“Roger that.”

The helicopter rose into the night. Men on the fuselage opened fire on more attackers coming over the side from the balcony. Conway knew to fly in the opposite direction of the origin of fire, so he flew out over the western wall, then dropped down toward the street like a rock in the hopes any armed men on the balcony would not be able to get a shot off.

Dom Caruso held on to the strap attaching him to the helo and shut his eyes. He was certain they were going to auger into the street, but as every time before, the Kiowa leveled off and his spine paid the price. He didn’t open his eyes for nearly half a minute, and when he did, he was happy to see they were out over the water again.

The flight back to Boryspil was as eventful and uncomfortable as the flight in. Multiple times Dom thought they were being chased by other helicopters, because the Kiowa took all sorts of crazy evasive-action maneuvers.

Nesterov himself vomited right next to Dom. The puke seeped out from under the man’s hood, and Caruso stuck his gloved hand under the cover to clean off the man’s face and nose so he didn’t suffocate.

This made Dom want to vomit again, but he had nothing left to offer the forest below him.