Under Fire

45

Using the crowbar, Jack punched a hole in the gas tank. Fuel started gushing, splashing on the ground and mixing with the rainwater sluicing down the hill. The stench filled Jack’s nostrils.

Dom began handing him material from inside the Suburban and then, once it was saturated, threw it into the backseat and fed Jack another chunk.

“Headlights coming around the bend,” Dom said, grabbing and tossing material.

Jack resisted the urge to look. The sound of the Krasukhas’ diesel engines grew louder. Jack could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet.

They kept up their daisy chain until every shred of material they could lay their hands on was dripping with gasoline. Finally, Jack stuffed a chunk of foam into the tank’s hole.

Down the hill, the first Krasukha was a hundred yards away, its thick knurled tires churning up the wet gravel. The headlights were climbing up the slope, slowly edging closer to the nose of the Suburban.

Jack opened the driver’s-side door, started the ignition, and shifted the transmission into neutral. The Suburban’s tires rolled up the stone wheel blocks, then rolled down them. Jack returned to the tailgate. Dom handed Jack a pair of ARXs and one of the Rugers in a paddle holster, which Jack clipped to his belt. He slung one of the ARXs across his chest, the other over his back.

“You look like a bandito,” Dom said.

“What do you make the distance, about two hundred feet?”

“About that,” Dom replied.

“Let’s send it.”

Dom knelt and jerked the stone free.

The Suburban started rolling.

They turned, hurdled the chain, and took up their positions on either side of the road.

It hadn’t covered ten feet when it hit a soft spot in the gravel. The nose veered left toward the drop-off. The tires hit the shoulder berm and the Suburban veered back into the middle of the road and started picking up speed.

“Do it,” Dom said.

Jack raised his ARX and peered through the scope; in the compressed view the Suburban was a jittery blur. Jack placed the lighted green reticle on the pile of material in the cargo area and pulled the trigger.

Miss.

He fired again.

Another miss.

Come on, Jack, shoot straight, damn it.

“You’re two inches high right,” Dom shouted.

A hundred feet away, the lead Krasukha skidded to a stop, its brakes screeching. Jack heard the grinding of gears and the vehicle started backing up. Horns started honking.

Jack adjusted his aim again. He thumbed the selector to three-round burst, took a breath, let it out, and squeezed the trigger.

Inside the tailgate, the rock sparked.

With an audible whoosh the material burst into flame, immediately engulfing the rear and middle seats. Fire streamed from the half-open windows, blooming as the Suburban picked up speed and oxygen was funneled through the interior.

The lead Krasukha was still reversing. Behind it, the second vehicle sped up and veered toward the shoulder, trying to avoid the collision. As they slid past each other, the left-hand Krasukha’s wheels slipped off the edge and the vehicle began tipping sideways with the sound of groaning steel.

Fully engulfed now, the Suburban slammed into the lead Krasukha, and its push bumper crushed the Suburban’s hood beneath it. Fire shot from the Suburban’s side windows and splashed across the Krasukha’s windshield, over the roof, then down the sides.

The second truck rolled onto its side, teetered there for a moment, then began barrel-rolling down the slope, its engine revving and headlights spiraling. Jack heard shouting, barked orders in Russian. There wasn’t a trace of panic in the voices.

Men came running up the side of the first Krasukha, dodging flames and firing from the hip. Jack counted four of them, then five, then eight charging past the engulfed Krasukha and up the hill toward them.

“So much for the shock factor,” Dom shouted from his tree across the road.

Jack took aim on the lead soldier and pulled the trigger. The man went down. Dom opened up, firing in tight three-round bursts, dropping two more.

The others spread apart, making themselves harder targets, then went prone and began returning fire.

Jack heard a snap beside his head, then a second. Bullets thudded into his tree and peppered the soil beside his foot.

Four more soldiers joined the first group, and together they began leapfrogging up the road, two prone and laying down suppressing fire while two others advanced. They were thirty yards away and rapidly closing the distance.

These men were disciplined and well trained, Jack realized. It had taken them less than a minute to recover from the suddenness of the ambush, then to regroup and attack. This had never been a fight he and Dom were going to win; the best they could hope for was to hold these soldiers off for more than another couple of minutes, by which time they’d be within hand-to-hand range — if they survived that long.

From down the road came the roar of a diesel engine at high revolutions. Jack saw the glare of headlights, and then the third Krasukha emerged from the flames, scraping down the length of the first one and shoving it sideways as it chugged its way up the slope. More men came charging around the side of the vehicle, firing as they went.

Dom shouted, “Jack, time to GTFO!”

“Yep. Let’s get their heads down first!”

Simultaneously they peeked out from behind their trees, braced the ARXs on the trunks, and opened fire on full auto. The soldiers scattered.

Jack and Dom turned and started running.

Twelve minutes later, Jack turned left off the trail, then over a rise, then lost his footing in the mud and started sliding. He clawed at the passing branches and jerked to a stop. Only a few feet behind, Dom tried to leap over him but fell short. He landed hard on his back and his head smacked into Jack’s sternum. Dom rolled over and started crawling. Jack followed him until he felt pavement under his palms, then stopped. His heart thundered. His ears pulsed with rushing blood.

Where were they?

He saw white lines on the asphalt. A parking lot. It was empty. At the lot’s entrance was a green-and-white sign with a pine tree emblem on it. A nature reserve or hiking area, Jack decided.

Dom gasped, “Do you see them?”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Are… they… following… us?”

Jack pushed himself to his knees and looked around, trying to get his bearings. He glanced back the way they’d come. It was getting lighter out and the wind had died away, but the sky was still full of leaden clouds. In the distance, barely visible through the rain, he could see the ridge road winding up the slope. He saw no headlights. Somewhere up there the two Krasukhas they’d failed to stop were probably in place and spooling up.

“No, we’re fine,” Jack said. “I’m not exactly sure where we are, though.”

“We’re off that damned ridge, that’s good enough for me. How many did we take out?”

“Bad guys or Krasukhas?”

“Krasukhas.”

“Two, the one that went over the side and the first one. It might be operational, but there’s no way they’re getting it up that hill.”

“Fifty percent. Not bad,” said Dom.

“Are you hurt?”

“I hurt everywhere. How far do you think that was?”

“Two miles, at least.”

“I’ve never run that fast in my life.”

Jack got to his feet; his legs were rubber. He helped Dom up, then Jack patted his pockets until he found his phone. He was down to fifteen-percent battery life.

He dialed Ysabel and got no answer, then tried Seth and Spellman with the same result. He dialed the Ministry of the Interior’s main switchboard and got a busy signal. Cell towers were down, either shut down locally or fried remotely by the Krasukhas.

Jack dialed The Campus and explained to John and Gerry what had just happened. Gerry said, “We don’t know about cell service, but the whole of Dagestan’s Internet went dark about an hour ago. Nothing’s getting out.”

“Nabiyev and Volodin have shut down the ISPs, and probably the power grid, too. Seth won’t bring his hubs online with the Krasukhas still operational.”

“Well, you sure as hell can’t go back up to that ridge, Jack. You gotta go after the Igarka,” said Clark.

Jack disconnected. He said to Dom, “We need to find a way back. We need to find out what’s going on.”

“Whatever’s happening, that can’t be good,” Dom said, pointing.

To the east, Makhachkala’s skyline was cloaked in roiling black smoke.