Unto the Breach

Chapter Thirty

Mike stayed still in his hide as an out of tune Lada puttered to the south. From the sound of it, it took the fork headed for Azerbaijan.

But that wasn’t what he was listening for. That was the sound of multiple engines coming from the north.

He’d found a nice little hide, a dug out portion to the streambank which was relatively flat and just about covered in bushes. First he’d slowly laid out a heavy ghillie blanket then slithered under it, snuggling into the comforting mud of the bank. Once under that he’d divested himself of some of his encumbering gear; the blanket was thick and lined with mylar to keep from letting loose any heat.

Once prepared he settled in to wait. When the vehicles, they sounded like small trucks or SUVs, pulled to a stop he still waited. He could hear the group deploying, quietly and professionally. They dropped into the streambed and walked down it, within a foot of his position at one point, without noticing that the pile of junk along the side of the stream was something other than a pile of junk. The night was still awfully dark and he’d have been hard to see in daylight much less under NVGs. For that matter, the patterning of the cover under the strips of burlap was a digital pattern designed to defeat NVGs. To a night vision system it simply didn’t exist. It was part of the pattern of pixels. If they’d scanned carefully with a thermal imager, they might have noticed him. But NVGs were worse than useless.

The fedayeen were, as normal, late. When he heard the second group of vehicles he pressed the transmitter and started the countdown.

The next was art rather than science. The other group of vehicles approached. Their lights would be on. Even if they were tactical lights they would partially blind the group Russians. And as the Islamics deployed the Russians, even though they each had a sector they were supposed to be watching, were going to be casting quick glances over their shoulder…

Now.

He stood up and casually walked up out of the streambed, fiddling with his zipper as he did.

Over all the rest of his gear he had a Russian military issue poncho. The weapon he’d chosen for the op was a BIZON 7.62x25 submachine gun. The weapon was a favorite of Russian special operations groups, firing a 7.62x25 bullet from an integrally silenced barrel. Heavier and less accurate than the silenced M4, it was still a pretty good weapon.

AS he’d guessed, the former Spetznaz were armed with a motley collection of personal weapons. He spotted two Makarovs before he was even up on the flat.

“You should have taken a piss before we left,” one of the guards growled, turning back from a glance over his shoulder at the Islamics. The guy was just about covered in frag grenades. Personally, Mike hated the things. He used them when he had to but never carried more than one unless absolutely necessary. He’d seen too many people frag themselves. This fucker clearly loved the damned things. Stupid fuck.

“Tea,” Mike muttered back. Over the last year his Russian had gotten perfect and while accented, the accent didn’t sound American. That was because it was a Keldara accent. But the Russian would have to be quick as hell to notice that in the middle of an op.

Suddenly, Mike was just another of the Spetznaz guards. Several of them sported ponchos virtually identical to his. Same gun, same walk, same wariness.

Just one problem.

The two groups had stopped about sixty yards apart. That was fine, there were Keldara positioned on the far side of the engagement. The two groups would pincer the meet as soon as Mike initiated. But Mike had intended to get to the package and take it down then initiate. It was the only way he could be sure there wouldn’t be a nuke dropped on his head.

The problem was that the principles, and a select group of guards, was moving to the no-man’s land in the middle of the two groups. On the Russian side there were four guards, Sergei Rudenko and Arensky. Arensky was carrying what Mike presumed was the package, a briefcase. On the Islamic side there were four guards, these guys encumbered with bags but still with their hands on their weapons, Al-Kariya the Al Qaeda moneyman from the bulk and another guy, slimmer, nobody Mike knew about.

There was no way that Mike could approach that group. Too much ground to cover. Too open. Too obvious.

Fuck.

Mike wandered one way then back, looking up at the woods where the Keldara waited then stopped by where he’d come out of the stream. Three of the Russians had gathered there, not exactly taking advantage of the shelter of one of the Mercedes SUVs they’d come in but close. One of them was the guy who had challenged Mike’s “bathroom trip.”

Fuck. This was gonna suck.

As he approached the group his C2 device buzzed, once. Adams was initiating. Out of time.

He reached over, casually pulled a pin out of one of the frags on the guy’s harness and then pushed the man, hard, into the group.

Two steps and he was rollling across the hood of the Mercedes SUV, hitting the ground on the far side on both feet and aiming into the group of principles.

“Lasko! Go!”

Lasko had been continually adjusting his aim based on his read of the wind and, ignoring the sudden crash of multiple grenades, his finger stroked the trigger as soon as he heard the “Go” command.

“Target down,” Sion muttered. “Shift right. Sniper on ridgeline. Target down. I lost the third one.”

“Jackrabbiting,” Lasko said. “Back… ”

There was a thud next to him and looking over it was clear that Sion was not going to be drinking any more beer. Or, what was worse, doing any more spotting.

He was already down as the next round cracked overhead.

“Right,” Lasko muttered. “If that’s the way you want to play it.”

He had two more hides prepared. Time to play the game.

“Sniper teams, engage targets in valley,” Lasko said, thumbing his throat mike. “I’ll take the enemy sniper.”

Mike triggered a burst into the group of principles, trying for the distant figure that he assumed to be Sergei. The man was next to Arensky, anyway. Arensky and Al-Kariya were easy to spot. Neither one of them looked as if they knew what to do in the firefight that was erupting around them.

What he got, instead, were the two guards who moved to place themselves by the principles. It was the right move but it cost them their lives.

Sergei snatched the case away from Arensky and picked him up by the collar, pounding towards the nearest vehicle as the mujaheddin closed in around Al-Kariya and began firing at the Russians.

Suddenly it was a free-for-all. Both groups, highly suspicious of each other, thought that they had been betrayed. The Russians were laying down fire on the fedayeen as the fedayeen backed up to their vehicles. Rounds were cracking downrange in both directions as Mike leapt to his feet and began pounding towards the retreating Russian.

Mike had counted on that. He figured when things went south, especially if it was from fire within the area, they would start fighting each other.

Neither group noticed, until too late, that they were being attacked from behind.

“Back!” Rashid shouted, drawing a pistol out of his robes.

He couldn’t see who had fired but the explosion looked as if it must have been a rocket launcher and some of the Russians were down. The pig Sergei Rudenko had dragged the doctor, and the smallpox, away. The Russians were clearly attacking them, it was time to run.

“Protect Al-Kariya!” Haza shouted at the same moment, dropping to a knee and firing at the Russians on the other side of the open area. The fire from the SK-74 was short, controlled bursts. He fired twice then rolled to the side towards the riverbed, up on a knee, two more bursts.

Rashid grabbed the money-man by the arm and started backing away, firing his pistol in the general direction of the Russians.

“Come Haji Al-Kariya!” Rashid said but Al-Kariya had already picked up the hem of his robe and turned to the rear, breaking into a rather fast run for a man of his bulk.

The fedayeen guards were moving forward, their training in such a situation to be to counter-attack then withdraw. They were having to fire around the principles but they were all more than capable of doing so.

Rashid made it to the relative safety of the first pick-up in line and ran to the rear, dropping down and fumbling for a magazine.

“We must get the smallpox,” Al-Kariya said. He had dropped into the mud of the road next to the younger financier and was panting heavily. “We must.”

“The money is in the road back there,” Rashid snarled. “We have to get that.”

“To the devil with the money,” Al-Kariya said, hefting himself to his feet as the last of the fedayeen dashed forward. “The smallpox is what matters!”

“Haza will get it if it is possible,” Rashid assured him. “I will go forward and tell him.” The younger man had just seated the magazine, it was not a natural thing for him, and looked up into the barrel of a weapon.

“Tell him what, pray?” a camouflage clad figure asked in passable Arabic.

Rashid carefully set the pistol on the ground.

“Uh, sayyidi, you might want to raise your hands. Very slowly.”

Mike pounded across the open area, trying to look like a guard closing in to secure his principle. As he did, he started taking fire from the fedayeen, some of it damned close.

“Uh, guys,” Mike panted, keying his throat mike. “I could use some fucking FIRE here! And be aware that I’m in the middle of this gunfight!”

“Move! Move!” Sawn shouted as the Keldara boiled out of the streambed.

They were practically on top of the rear Russian vehicles. The Russians were concentrated on their firefight with the fedayeen and at first didn’t even notice the fire coming in from behind. Guys were dying in the rain. When a person’s hit, they generally fall forward whether they’re hit from the back or the front. And most of them had guys behind them firing past them. Most of them were snuggled into the dubious cover of the trucks, anyway. As were the fedayeen.

Sawn bounded forward and triggered a three round burst into the broad back of a Russian crouched into the wheel-well of one of the Mercedes SUVs. The fighter slumped into the wheel and his weapon fell to the ground out of slack fingers.

As Sawn moved forward, shooting another Russian in the back who had been firing around the next vehicle in line, Sawn’s number two pumped another burst into the Russian, just to make sure.

Some of them seemed to notice the fire from behind them, a few turned around. But by then it was too late. The Keldara were bounding forward in two man teams, spread on either side of the trucks, engaging targets with their backs turned who were concentrated on firing to their front. It was almost too easy. It wasn’t a firefight, it was a slaughter.

“We are coming, Kildar!” Sawn replied, keying his own mike. “We are coming.”

Lasko slid into place and scanned the far ridge. There were cooling forms in the thermal imager but the difference between that and someone heavily cloaked was hard to determine.

He had pulled a ghillie cloak up and pulled up both his balaklava and face mask. The combination was going to reduce his thermal image. The sniper on the far ridge had to be using a thermal imager; there was no way to pick someone out at this range in this blackness using an NVG.

There had been three pairs on the far ridge. He counted one, two… six cooling forms. Wait.

He fired without thinking, ducking at the same time to hear the enemy round pass overhead.

He rolled to the right, slid down the slope then up behind a tree, peering out again. Where the slightly hottter spot had been… Nothing. He needed a spotter, someone to check all the cooling targets for him but…

There. A sudden warm spot. Barely different from the background.

There was no time for careful measurement, no time for consideration. The rifle, again, slammed into his shoulder a surprise as it always was when the shot was good. He jerked back then, instead of moving, came right back up.

The hotspot… was still there. But… cooler.

“That’s for you, Sion,” Lasko whispered.

Revenge is a dish best served… cooler.

Fucking blackasses.

Ivar Terekhov wished that there was some selective plague that would wipe all the blackass Muslims from the face of the earth. He had joined the Russian Army as a conscript but after his first tour in Chechnya he had reenlisted to join Spetznaz. One mission to “support” a convoy that had already been overrun by the fucking Chechens was all it took. One look at the mutilated bodies of his friends, his fellow soldiers, and the formerly laid back Moscovite had hated the blackasses with a burning passion.

Oh, he’d lost his innocence over the years, as mission after mission had been completely fucked up by higher command. He had come to understand that incompetence and corruption were the reality of his motherland, just as betrayal was the nature of the Islamic. He had quit, he had taken pay from the mob, he had even attacked the motherland on more than one occasion. But he still hated fucking blackasses.

Unlike a lot of his peers he had studied them, had read a translation of their Koran, had read Western papers on their culture. He wanted to know what drove their thinking. And the thing that he came to, over and over again, was that the Prophet, spit be upon his grave, had promised them paradise for every lie they told an unbeliever. They weren’t just untrustworthy, they were the definition of untrustworthy. They would rather lie to an unbeliever than tell the truth. Betrayal, to them, was as natural as breathing.

This firefight proved it. How they had slipped into their midst and detonated Matvei’s grenades Ivar wasn’t sure. But they clearly had. Matvei and his grenades might occasion some joking among the “Group” but he never made mistakes with them.

Now he had the chance to kill fucking mutilating, betraying blackasses and he intended to send as many of them to meet their Prophet in hell as he possibly could.

Another moved across the open area in front and he targeted the figure, fired five rounds and dropped him. Fire was coming from the streambed that the muj had been headed for but even that was slackening off.

They were winning. Fuck these blackass motherfuckers. They would have the money and the biologicals. Hopefully, Sergei would just destroy the latter. Then they could all retire on a nice trop…

Tunnel vision has an evolutionary purpose; it permits the mind to avoid distraction and concentrate on the “prey.” It is probably derived from early hunting necessity; prey in herds scattered and crossed, making it hard to concentrate on just one target. Tunnel vision permitted the early human predator to ignore those distractions and dial down on just one prey. But the problem with it is that sometimes a distraction is important. Such as the “distraction” of someone coming up behind you and putting four rounds through the back of your head.

Gena Mahona was getting a bit sick of this.

He was a fighter. That was what the Keldara were raised to be; they took it in with their first sip of beer which was usually administered in the nursery. A weapon was placed in their hand while the afterbirth was still extruding from their mother’s womb. The highest calling was to die in battle, eyes broad and screaming defiance into the face of their enemies.

The American way of war that the Kildar taught was colder, quieter, in many ways more merciless. But this was just sickening.

The mujaheddin they were fighting were very good. They were aiming, they were taking cover. But they weren’t looking behind them. They had had a security force out to the rear. But as soon as the firing started, the security force had oriented towards the Russians. Most of them had run forward to engage the obvious enemy.

He was shooting people in the back. A lot of people. He had stopped counting at four kills.

Even the muj that had taken cover in the stream weren’t paying attention to their rear. They were firing in short bursts, reloading, firing, all of it perfectly drilled and automatic. But they didn’t seem to notice the sound of the Keldara sloshing down the stream, or even the occasional curse as one slipped on a slime covered rock. When one fell they assumed it was from the fire to the front, even though that was slackening off.

There were only three he could see still firing. One was clearly out of rounds and turned to his fellow, saying something quick in Arabic. But that had caused him to look around, finally.

“Don’t,” Geda said, quietly, as the rest of the team started to gather to either side.

The fedayeen looked at him, wide-eyed, then at the trail of bodies faintly visible in the streambed.

“Just… don’t.”

The fedayeen cursed and reached into his robe as his companion started to turn…

It wasn’t good fire discipline, but the nine Keldara gathered in the streambed expended over thirty-six rounds on the last three mujaheddin.

Just sickening. It made you want to weep. The Father of All wasn’t going to consider this a battle. This wasn’t exactly going to get him to the Halls of Feasting.

On the other hand, there were a bunch of dead fedayeen and in the grand scheme of things he had to consider that a plus.

Sergei hurled Dr. Arensky into the front seat of the Mercedes then climbed over him into the driver’s seat.

“Make one stupid move,” Sergei threatened, turning the key. “Yakov! Dmitri? Fuck… ” He put the car in drive and looked in his rearview mirror. He’d thought the fucking blackasses had hit them but now he could see camouflage clad figures moving down the line of vehicles, firing into the unprotected backs of his men. “It’s not the blackasses!” He screamed over the team circuit. “You’re being hit from behind!”

It was clearly too late. The blackasses were firing to the rear as well, clearly they’d been hit from both directions. It was a total fuckup.

Time to get the fuck out, then.

The blackasses had pulled into the Georgian road, blocking it. Not that he wanted to go that way. The proper escape route was up into Russia. But the only road open was the one to Azerbaijan. Fine.

He put his foot down and peeled out, all four tires screaming at the wet gravel.

Time to fly.

“No, no, NO! FUUUCK!” Mike screamed up at the clouds. As rounds cracked over his head from behind him he ripped off the poncho and triggered a UV strobe on his shoulder. “Check fucking FIRE!” he screamed into his throat mike. “This fucking op is BLOWN! The package is in movement. Repeat, the package is ACTIVE! Lasko, stop that VEHICLE!”

“That is not good,” the president said. “Is the B-2 on station.”

“Ready to drop,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. He’d been brought in late in the operation but was fully up to speed at this point. “All the codes have been given. Literally, all you have to do is give the drop order.”

“Minuet?” the president said.

“One minute,” she replied.

“We don’t have one minute,” the Secretary of Defense pointed out. “Those things do have a limited blast range. It’s big, but it’s limited.”

“Give me the Kildar,” the president said.

“LASKO?”

“Negative, Kildar,” Lasko replied. “The target is out of view.”

Mike was already in one of the Mercedes and starting it. Fortunately they all had keys in the ignition. He jerked it into gear just as he felt thumps in the back.

“Salvo, Kildar, I’m in the back.”

“We are so out of… ”

“Mike, this is the President.”

“Oh, Jesus, sir, not NOW.”

“Mike, is the package in movement?”

“I can stop it!”

“Do you have any forces in the way?” the president asked, remorselessly.

“It take it back!” Mike yelled. “I was JOKING. I can STOP it. I’ve never fucking FAILED, sir. I am not about to start now!” He took a breath as he hit the first curve. He could see the lights of the other Mercedes up ahead. The guy didn’t have that much of a lead on him. “I can stop it, sir. I am in pursuit at this time. I am sending continuous coordinates. All that I ask is that if you drop, you drop on me and not my men. If you hit my position, at any time, you will destroy the target. If that changes, you’ll be the second person to know,” Mike added as the Mercedes skidded through another turn.

“Very well,” the president said, nervously. “I’m out of the connection.”

“Thanks,” Mike said. “I can concentrate on driving.”

“Do we actually have track on him?” the president asked.

“Yes, sir,” the major replied, instantly. “His C2 pad is updating his location every second and a half. The B-2 has the same track point and should be tracking.”

“Send them definite orders to track on that source,” the president replied. “When the track point is four kilometers from the origin point, they are authorized to drop.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and consulted it. “Code Alpha, Charlie, One, Five, Six, Bravo, Niner.”

“Yes, sir,” the major said, swallowing but tapping the orders into the B-2 link.

“Kurt!” Sergei said into his throat mike. “Kurt, can you hear me?”

“Is he the one guarding my daughter?” Arensky asked, curiously.

He seemed awfully detached, almost catatonic. Some people got that way when things went bad. Sergei, though, prided himself on keeping a cool head.

“Just shut the fuck up,” Sergei snarled. He just had to clear the area. But the road was a nightmare, slick, twisting and climbing up into the mountains. He’d barely gotten a couple of kilometers, maybe three, away from the firefight. He had to get further…

“Things don’t seem to be going very well,” Arenksy replied, glancing over his shoulder. “What, did you think the Russian government was just going to let you walk away with smallpox? They, and the American and the French and the Germans and the fucking Nigerians are going to be hunting you for the rest of your very short life. Give up now.”

“Just shut the FUCK up!” Sergei screamed. “Or your daughter… ”

“Is either dead or already rescued,” Arensky said, evenly. “Either way, that threat has grown weary, no?”

“Then try this one,” Sergei screamed, pulling out his pistol and holding it to the scientist’s temple. “Say one more fucking word and you are going to be splattered all over that window.”

Arensky raised his hands in surrender and then pulled on his seatbelt to tighten it. As the mobster put his weapon away the scientist braced his feet and shifted in his seat, grasping at the seat handles. After a moment he checked his watch, then braced some more.

“What in the fuck are you doing?” Sergei ground out. He was definitely feeling ill about this. He was practically shaking. No matter how bad an op had gone, he never shook. He was iron. Everyone knew that.

“Just bracing myself,” Arensky said. “Airbags aren’t perfect. I’m glad you chose a Mercedes, through. Oh, and checking the time.”

“Why?” Sergei asked, wiping at his forehead. He was definitely shaking. Damn. Damn this man. Damn this op. Damn those fuckers back there. Spetznaz probably. He’d probably trained some of them for fuck’s sake!

“Because as you were bundling me about and threatening me I was slipping three small needles into your thigh,” Arensky said. “You probably didn’t notice the slight pain what with everything else. One of them was coated in a product derived of ergot. It causes a reaction called Saint Vitus’ Dance. Think of it as LSD. Psychotropic, hallucinogenic, very effective. You’re probably already feeling the effects; it’s fast stuff. If that didn’t get you, the second was coated in a nasty little microbe that is found in sink drains world-wide. Very rarely kills anyone despite that; most people don’t eat food they pick out of the sink drain. However, if it is cultured by an expert and then stuck into someone’s thigh, it will spread through the bloodstream rather fast. Oh, it’s not going to kill you for three or four days, but that one was guaranteed. The last was, I’m pretty sure, botulinus toxin. One of the tins of meat you left us was rather swelled and the resultant culture sure looked like botulinus. And botulinus is nasty. A teaspoon would kill a city. The amount I gave you would only kill, say, an elephant. By the way, that would have killed me if I’d eaten it. Such great care you took, too… ”

Mike slowed the Mercedes as he saw the vehicle he’d been chasing suddenly swerve from side to side then roll off the road.

When he slid to a stop near the wreck all he could see was airbags. Frankly, he’d always thought Mercedes overdid the whole airbag thing. Sure, one in the front. Maybe ones on the sides. But that wasn’t good enough for Mercedes, oh, no. They had them on both sides, front and back, top and in the middle. If you so much as hit a pole in a parking lot you were suddenly smothered in exploding balloons.

The Mercedes SUV was upside down in a ditch, the driver’s side window pointed towards him. He and Sawn approached, weapons pointed forward, as the balloons slowly deflated.

The man hanging upside down in the straps was alive and, amazingly, unscratched from the crash. Okay, so maybe that many airbags had a purpose. On the other hand, he was having convulsions. It was clearly Sergei, though. He might be foaming at the mouth, but it was Sergei.

Mike considered putting a few rounds into his head and then thought better of it. The guy might have information they could use. Waste not and all that.

He ducked down and looked to the other side of the vehicle.

“And who are you?” Dr. Arensky asked.

“Mike Jenkins,” Mike replied, head on the side to look through the vehicle. “I work for various people. Right now I’m getting paid to get you, and some stuff you’re carrying, away from bad people.”

“Oh, glad to meet you,” Dr. Arensky said. “I seem to be stuck.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “What’s wrong with Sergei here?”

“Oh, that,” Arensky said with a shrug. “Mr. Jenkins, can I call you Mike?”

“Sure,” Mike said, trying not to giggle at the unreality. “Wait just a sec, though.” He keyed his throat mike. “Hello, God on High. You still listening?”

“Go, Mike,” the president answered, tensely.

“Got the package,” Mike said. “Call off the flyboys. Arensky is alive as well. Getting out will be interesting, but the package is secure.”

“Glad to hear it,” the president said. “Good job. Tell me when the material is… fully safe.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike replied, unkeying the mike. “Just make sure you make the payments. Sorry, you were saying?”

“Mr. Jenkins, Mike, let me suggest something to you,” Arensky said, smiling despite being stuck in the seatbelt and dangling upside down. “I know that you do a lot of hard things in your line of work. That you piss off a lot of people.”

“That’s a given,” Mike said, tilting his head again.

“Mike, Mr. Jenkins, my friend,” Arensky said, grinning. “Let me give you one piece of advice. Take it for what you will. Piss off terrorists, piss off mobsters, piss off your president if you wish. But never ever piss off a microbiologist.”