ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch (40 page)

Misha’s forehead wrinkled in deep folds.

Something exploded above and behind him.

* * *

Handon emerged from the forest into the open air along the riverbank, the RPG-32 already up on his shoulder, its collimating sight powered up, warhead armed, and safeties off.

He turned to the right, facing downriver, and took a knee.

The Black Shark hovered over the river eighty yards away, drifting slowly from side to side as its autocannon chattered and systematically reduced the forest ahead of it.

Handon sighted in on its right-side engine.

He let the rocket go.

It streaked off on a trail of smoke and flame and a half-second later caught the helo square on the engine cowling, just below the base of its rotors, and just above the weapons-laden stub wing.

A vicious explosion obscured most of the aircraft.

Handon let the empty launch tube fall from his shoulder and brought his rifle up as he ID’ed a shooter – one with a sniper rifle – lying on his stomach on the base of the destroyed bridge, also about eighty yards out. Handon lit him up, wood splinters chipping up around the sniper’s body – but the man rolled quickly and smoothly off the far side of the bridge and out of sight.

The RPG explosion overhead cleared – and the Black Shark was still there behind it, still flying, though swaying and rocking more than before. But it looked undamaged. No effect whatsoever… except to get its attention.

Which was exactly what Handon wanted.

It started to pedal-turn in his direction, spinning 90 degrees to its left, lining up all its weapons on him – and he stood alone and exposed out on the riverbank. Handon was actually close enough to lock eyes with the pilot across open air. Her neck stretched forward, eyes first wide, then dangerously narrowed.

Handon planted his feet. He stole a look at his watch.

And then he brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

* * *

On the opposite side of the river, fifty meters inside the forest, two big and blank-faced Spetsnaz commandos maintained a wary vigil over a bagged-up body, which undulated slowly on the swampy ground between them. They had been given the honor of protecting the mission objective – the Index Case.

Standing to either side of it, slightly hunched over, scanning the thick bush, they both wore dark gray fatigues, body armor, and tactical vests; knives and handguns on duty belts and chest rigs; alert and emotionless faces marked with soot, dirt, and sweat. Both held black AK-100s to their shoulders, textured polymer Magpul magazines protruding below, EOTech sights on top.

One put his hand to his radio earpiece.

“
Da, Polkóvnik
.” Speaking over his shoulder to the other, he said, “Be ready to move. It’s nearly done.” The other nodded and monitored his sector. A faint noise sounded from the forest, perhaps a crunching branch – causing him to hunch down more, squint out into the thick vegetation, and raise his weapon from the low to high ready position.

A single round caught him in the throat, spinning him halfway round. Both he and his buddy reacted instantly, dropping down into cover and lighting up the section of forest the shot had come from. More rounds cut the air and foliage around them.

Right behind them came three crashing bodies.

We’re In Ur Base, Killin Ur Dudz

Nugal River Valley – North Side of the River
[Ten Minutes Ago]

“I’m definitely getting too old for this shit,” Fick muttered.

This was the second time in his life the grizzled Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant had used that line. But the last time, on Beaver Island, shit had been blowing up too spectacularly for either Brady or Reyes to hear it.

This time they did hear, as the only noise was that of the autocannon on the Russian helo, chattering off in the distance – and the heaving and grunting of their own labored breathing. Fick and what was left of his senior fire team had been hauling ass overland all day, ever since Handon had made radio contact and got them moving on an intercept course with the fleeing Russians. They had first found an abandoned vehicle they could roll start, and had driven it like maniacs all the way to the edge of the river valley. They’d been forced to abandon it there, and had been hauling ass on foot through the bush for the better part of an hour.

By the time of Handon’s final transmission and instruction – that Patient Zero was static on the ground and only guarded by two shooters, along with a ten-digit grid reference for its location… and also reporting that Alpha was in a gunfight that could end with them all dead in minutes…

Since that moment, the Marines had been on a hell of a clock. And they had been sprinting through the bush of the Nugal River Valley, Fick only stealing looks at his GPS to make sure they were still vectoring in on their target.

They didn’t even slow when they reached the spot, raising their rifles and firing flat out as they blasted into the little clearing like the wrathful ghost of Chesty motherfucking Puller. But the two Spetsnaz didn’t back down an inch, they certainly didn’t run – and they didn’t stop fighting when they got hit, one of them right through the neck.

It turned into a quick and ugly fight in close quarters, nearly point blank, suppressed rounds spitting back and forth, and only ended when Fick dove on the last Russian standing and held him down while Reyes shot him. When it was over, Brady had been wounded, a gunshot wound to the side of his groin.

But the clearing was theirs. Patient Zero lay undefended on the ground at their feet.

They’d done it.

Correction
, Fick thought.
Handon did it. We’re just his loyal minions at this point.

But they were also out of time. Even as Brady jammed a gauze pad against his inner-thigh wound and Fick picked up the bagged body and threw it over his shoulder, his radio went. He was expecting Hailey, who’d been acting as their comms relay with Alpha when they were too far away, or in bush too thick, for their team radios to carry. But it wasn’t her. It was Juice.

“Cadaver Two from Cadaver One-Five: be urgently advised – fighter top cover is down. And Thunderchild did NOT stop that Spetsnaz ground convoy. How copy?”

“Solid copy, Cadaver One,” Fick said. So, more bad news. There never seemed to be an end to it. He watched while Reyes pulled an RPG from under the body of one of the Russians, with an
Ooh, this might come in handy
look on his face.

“Cadaver Two, be further advised – that convoy is inbound your location.”

“ETA?”

“Pretty much any second now. You gotta bounce, Master Guns. And so do I.”

Fick didn’t bother signing off, but just turned to start hauling ass through the forest, back the way they came, and away from the road the convoy would be coming in on. Except this time with eighty pounds of dead guy over his shoulder.

He put his head down and focused on running.

* * *

Huddled up in his version of a drone control trailer in the Nevada desert, Juice sat on the floor of the Seahawk cabin with his back against a bulkhead, boots flat on the ground, knees up, and the GCS in his lap – following Handon’s instructions.

He brought the UCAV’s airspeed up as fast as he dared – and this aircraft could seriously tear up some sky – as he navigated the twisting and narrow channel of air ten feet over the Nugal River, between the edges of thick forest to either side.

He was going to have to time this shit perfectly.

Then again, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be too early. But too late would be a big problem, not least for Handon. Juice stared daggers at the screen as he played history’s most high-stakes video game.

The river blasted by below, trees blurring by on both sides.

* * *

Before the explosion of the RPG on the Black Shark had even settled, the airframe still rocking, Nina executed her ninety-degree pedal turn like the last best helo jock in the world, which she was, the world spinning as if on an axis beneath her.

Ten feet below, the river surged, twisting through the lush valley toward the Indian Ocean. To her left, just inside the edge of the forest, Team 1 of
Mirovye Lohi
took the fight to their enemies.

And directly ahead…

Directly ahead was a single enemy soldier, standing tall on the bank of the river, RPG tube at his feet, rifle to his shoulder. Unlike with her last two RPG attackers, which Nina snap-fired two rockets into and personally machine-gunned to death, respectively, she was so bemused by whatever the hell this guy was doing that she held her fire for a second.

Index finger curled around the autocannon trigger on the front of the cyclic, half the slack already out of it, she squinted into the eyes of this man, who was only eighty yards out – hell, scarcely the safe distance of the autocannon, not that she worried too much about safe distance.

And then this complete maniac started shooting at her – with his personal weapon. She had to give him credit. Rounds flecked off the armor glass right in front of her face, in a grouping maybe only two inches wide.
Ten points for marksmanship
, she thought.

But minus several million for target selection – and stupidity
.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

* * *

Handon saw the UCAV, and its missiles, at the same time he heard them. All three – the drone, and the two ASRAAMs, already off their rails and surging forward – were moving near the speed of sound. And all three appeared in an instant from the bend in the river behind him, missiles first, blasting up the river channel.

The air buffeted Handon as the munitions flashed overhead. He stopped shooting and lowered his rifle.

And he waved a lazy salute at the Black Shark pilot.

* * *

Nina’s radar warning receiver went apeshit at the same time she saw the sleek silver blur of the UCAV round the bend in the river – right behind two anti-air missiles. And this time, she had no forest cover to drop back down into. She was already in it.

And she was in it deep.

With the RWR shrieking, Bazarov shouting out headings and ETIs, the countermeasure system spitting out red flares to either side, heroically trying to confuse the infrared homing of the missiles, Nina pushed the engines to max power and tilted the bird to the left, sending it careening toward the forest edge on the south side, at the same time climbing with both collective and engine power for absolutely everything the aircraft was worth.

A half-second later, the helo was buffeted and thrown across the sky by first one explosion and then another, much closer – both of them low and to the right, where they had been hovering a quarter-second ago. The ASRAAMs were heat-seeking, but they also had laser proximity fuzes. And instead of passing harmlessly beneath or alongside…

Both went off – nearly in Nina’s face.

* * *

Handon watched as the first missile zipped in and exploded below and beside the helo – and then the second one exploded on it, or so close he couldn’t tell the difference.

He knew Juice was not a full-time drone pilot, never mind fighter pilot, and the mini-GCS didn’t have proper controls for advanced air-to-air weapons systems like the ASRAAM. Juice also either didn’t know about the minimum 5km range of the missiles, and their difficulty correcting inside of it, or just couldn’t do anything about it given Handon’s instructions. So this was probably never going to be the guaranteed kill that an F-35 would have gotten with the same munition.

And when the explosions cleared, the bird was still somehow in the air. But it was also on fire and smoking and flying erratically, careening back toward the right, as well as emitting an atrocious whine as the one surviving engine tried to pick up the slack for the destroyed one on the other side.

Whining, smoking, screaming, the mortally wounded bird of prey continued to veer off to the right, just clearing the tops of the trees on the north side of the river. And then it disappeared behind the forest.

Watching it go, Handon hit his mic. “Juice. Spetsnaz ground force is next – hit ’em. Two Hellfires. I’ll lase the target for you.”

“Roger that. Next attack run in thirty seconds.”

Handon then hailed his guys on the ground. “Ali, Henno, and Baxter – get ready to disengage, run like hell, and then cover up.” Still standing out on the riverbank, he flicked on the IR aiming laser on his barrel rail, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and pointed it at the backs of the Spetsnaz positions in the trees.

And he started swinging out and walking them down.

Get Some

Nugal River Valley – Just North of the River

As the three Marines, one of them seriously wounded, one carrying a body, all smashed through the heavy bush, they could already hear the Spetsnaz ground convoy arriving behind them. The two guardians of P-Zero had set up under cover, but close to the road that ran through the forest and met the destroyed bridge at water’s edge. They had been waiting for their ride.

It was here too late for them – but too early for the Marines.

They could hear the trucks rumbling through the rutted forest road behind them, moving at speed. And, as usual, Spetsnaz were switched on. Somebody in the first vehicle spotted them – and went leaping out to give chase.

Hearing rounds snapping through the air close to his head, Reyes stopped, spun, dropped down, and engaged. Confident, aggressive, the Russian commando was focused on catching his prey, not having the tables turned. As he blasted out of the bush, Reyes fired and cut him down, sending him sliding into the mud at his feet.

When he faced forward again to catch the others, Reyes found they had turned back and caught him. Or, rather, Brady had, with Fick following and hissing at him to get the hell back there.

“I’m taking rear ambush,” Brady said, his face shining with sweat, and pale from blood loss. “You guys go.”

Fick and Reyes instantly knew what he was thinking: that the enemy was too close, and he was slowing them down too much. They couldn’t get caught and lose their prize now.