Black Flagged Redux (25 page)

"Do we even know who we're firing at?" Tech Sergeant Salazar said.

"It doesn't matter," McIntyre replied, adjusting the laser designator's screen resolution.

She wouldn't have a lot of time to acquire the best target cluster to help the friendly ground unit, so she opened the aperture for the multi-spectral targeting system. This would give her a wide view when the Predator reached the apex of Hesselman's climb and started to descend.

"Exactly," Hesselman said, "the friendly unit is under fire. We're under orders to provide them with close air support. Here we go, coming out of the climb…and, three, two, one…over the top."

McIntyre studied the screen and immediately switched to thermal imaging, once she had positively identified and marked the friendlies. Any other thermal signatures were valid targets. She just hoped the firefight had cleared the village of any remaining innocent bystanders.

**

Daniel risked a glance at the western village and saw several slightly exposed targets. With well-aimed shots from his rifle, he knew he could hit them. Unfortunately, the incoming rifle fire had become extremely accurate, preventing him from raising his AK-74 above road level to fire anything more than a hastily aimed burst. He hunkered back down along with the rest of the team. Even Farrington wouldn't risk more than a quick shot. They had lost what little initiative they had managed to muster in the face of a sudden ambush and had stalled out along the road, unable to press forward without certain catastrophic casualties. Daniel had started to reconsider the marking grenade option, when a shattering explosion rattled the ground and sent a shock wave over the road.

"Something big hit them…let's go!" Farrington yelled and wasted no time starting to sprint toward the structures directly ahead of them.

A second massive explosion rocked the outskirts of the western village, just as Daniel started to sprint with the rest of his team. Amazingly, Dusty managed to sprint past him before they closed half the distance to their destination. The volume of incoming fire dropped to nothing as they expended all of their remaining energy and lung capacity reserves to reach the concrete structures.

By the time Daniel's shoulder slammed against the closest wall, Farrington and Sergei had started firing single, well aimed shots through the red dot sights on their assault rifles. They quickly spread out through the cluster of crudely built, Soviet style bungalows. Leo had bent over one of the dead attackers that Daniel had killed minutes earlier.

Daniel slid along the wall to Farrington's crouched figure and swung his rifle around the same corner, staying upright. Their attackers had rallied quickly after the massive explosions, and there was no time to scan the sky for their air support. It didn't matter anyway, since they all knew that the Predator only carried two missiles. Still, if they could get in touch with the operator, they might be able to get some live intelligence about the attacking force. They were in much better shape now that they had reached the cover of these buildings, but they were far from being out of the woods.

Daniel spotted a target issuing hand signal orders and placed the illuminated red arrow tip at the base of the man's face. He pulled the trigger twice and saw the rust colored mist fill the air behind the man. He rapidly sighted in on another exposed soldier several feet to the left of the fallen squad leader. Before the soldier could react to the gruesome death that had just transpired a few feet away, Daniel fired again, hitting him center of mass and sending him sprawling into the dirt. The next target he found through his ACOG scope took multiple hits to the upper torso before Daniel could squeeze off a shot.

"Quit hogging shots," Daniel said, as a half-dozen bullets slammed into the concrete corner, spraying them with sharp fragments.

"Quit running your suck hole and keep shooting," Farrington replied, without the slightest hint of comedy.

He sighted along the low wall that had housed several shooters before the Hellfire missile impact and found the top of a head several meters down from the smoldering gap caused by a single AGM-114 Hellfire. The head stayed low, bobbing slowly back and forth…barely visible through Daniel's scope. He took a deep breath and exhaled, steadying the scope's red targeting arrow just a hair above the head. He didn't consciously squeeze the trigger. His right index finger had instinctively and uniformly removed nearly all of the trigger's pressure as the red arrow floated where Daniel thought he should take the shot. He never registered the command to continue squeezing the trigger, it just happened as naturally as taking a breath. The 5.45mm bullet took less than a tenth of a second to cross the gap and missed the top of the wall by less than a half-inch, reaching the man's head unhindered. He saw the head rise quickly and drop out of view.

"Nice shot. That fucker's been driving me crazy," Farrington said.

"More than welcome. Keep an eye on the situation. I need to figure out what the fuck is going on around here," he said and took off for Leo, who had nearly stripped the corpse naked looking for signs or clues to indicate what they were facing.

Daniel made sure they were not exposed to any obvious enemy fire and kneeled down next to Leo.

"What do we have?"

"Russians. Standard special forces comm set. Hidden harness with spare magazines, frag grenades, pistol…suppressor. My best guess is regional Spetsnaz. Border response team maybe. Something like our Rangers. Probably assigned to the Western Siberian Military District based out of Novosibirsk a few hundred miles from here. Why would the Russians put a reinforced platoon of special forces guys on our asses?"

"That's another million dollar question. Anything else you can tell me?"

"Not really, though I'd like to know how they got here. By my rough estimate, we're looking at thirty plus guys…"

"Hold on, Leo…fuck, do you hear that?"

Amidst the sharp reports of sporadic rifle fire, Daniel heard a deep rhythmic sound that made him shudder. He grabbed the bloodied pair of binoculars next to the dead Russian and wiped the lenses enough to see through the red smeared glass. Scanning the horizon, east to north, he spotted them almost due north. Three helicopters coming in low.

"Motherfucker! Grab an RPG if you can find one and take cover," he said and ran toward Dusty, who sat against the same wall next to Farrington, holding the satellite phone with a grin on his face.

"What is it?" Leo yelled at him as he ran.

"Helicopters!" he said, without looking back.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Shit," Leo said and started scrambling toward more of the dead bodies.

Petrovich reached Dusty, whose grin had faded at Daniel's single word.

"Is that Berg?"

"Yeah…they had some technical difficulties. He—"

Daniel swiped the phone from his hands. "Nice to finally hear your voice."

"Look, you have no idea what I've gone through to put that drone over your head, and from what I can tell—"

"I'll thank you later…right now we have a bigger problem. I have three helicopters headed my way. We were hit by Russians, so I assume this is their ride back over the border."

The satellite phone fell silent for several seconds, and Daniel raised the binoculars to examine the three ugly objects growing on the northern horizon, racing toward the village at 150 miles per hour.

"You still there? Or are we experiencing technical difficulties again?" Daniel said, shifting his gaze to Farrington. "Rich, we need to get across the street and find some RPGs. Mix in a little closer with their ground forces and make it hard for those helicopters to engage. What do we have left over there?" he said, with the satellite phone still jammed to his ear.

"Five or six guys. Maybe a few more. Dug in pretty well. They're not going anywhere," Farrington said and snapped off three shots.

"Scratch one more," Farrington added.

"Berg! You there? Fuck, this guy is killing me."

Berg's voice came back through the phone.

"Daniel, the Predator drone has no remaining ordnance. They can remain on station to—"

"Watch us get killed? What do we have coming our way? They're coming in too low for me to get an ID," Daniel replied.

Leo came into view around the corner of one of the houses with an RPG launcher and a backpack containing three shaped charge warheads. Farrington watched the remaining Spetsnaz troops and the open roadway through the village to ensure there would be no surprises from that direction.

"We're in business!" Leo yelled, and Daniel gave him a "thumbs up," anxiously waiting for Berg's reply.

"Predator control has two 'Hip' Mi-8 transport helicopters…and one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter," Berg continued, his voice trailing off with the sound of dread.

"Say again, last helicopter type," returned Daniel, reverting to formal military communications protocol.

"Mi-28 Havoc. One minute outbound…hold on, Daniel, I still might be able to help you out. I need to work on something…"

Petrovich threw the phone back at Dusty, who looked despondent, as the deep, ominous pounding sounds of heavy rotor blades grew louder.

"Stay close to me and put that phone in my ear the second he comes back on the line," he said, then turned to the rest of the team assembled behind the building.

"We need to get as close to their perimeter as possible. We have a Havoc inbound…no time for a plan. Move fast, shoot, use grenades. Don't drop the RPG," he said and smiled at Leo.

"Yeah, fuck you too," Leo responded with a grin, and they sprinted across the street.

**

Technical Sergeant Juan Salazar listened to Karl Berg's voice over the secure communications speaker while shaking his head slowly. He made eye contact with Staff Sergeant Kelly McIntyre and half mouthed-half whispered to her.

"No. No. This is fucking out of control."

McIntyre watched her screens intently, simultaneously zooming in on the three helicopters and the "friendlies" now dashing across the road.

"Friendlies just repositioned to western side of the village," she added to the conversation between Major Adler and Berg.

"Mr. Berg, with all due respect, you better have our asses covered on this," Hesselman said.

"Major, no need to hide something that never happened…and let me reiterate for everyone at your station. This never fucking happened. Get this done, Major. They're running out of time."

Major Hesselman moved the joystick left until his camera view showed three helicopters in formation, moving south down the road toward Kaynar. He increased the throttle setting, and the Predator drone accelerated into a dive exceeding the unmanned vehicle's advertised maximum speed of 135 miles per hour.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Salazar muttered.

Kelly McIntyre stared at her main screen with utter amazement as the "Havoc" filled the grainy scene on the monitor. No matter how fast she zoomed out, the Russian helicopter continued to grow until the screen went dead.

"Scratch one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter," she said and glanced at Salazar, who looked at her like a disapproving mother, with folded arms and a slowly shaking head.

**

The first salvo of 30mm cannon fire from the Havoc tore through the buildings they had just passed like paper. Unfortunately, their CIA liaison chose to invest in the deceptive safety of the first building that they encountered after crossing the open road. Daniel had reached out to pull him along, but the terrified agent crouched solidly against the concrete wall. Petrovich had no intention of slowing down long enough to try and physically dislodge him. Just as Petrovich cleared the structure, the house exploded from the near simultaneous impact of several dozen high velocity projectiles, and Dusty disappeared in the maelstrom of concrete chunks and wooden splinters.

Another burst of cannon fire tore into a house ahead of the team, shattering the structure and indicating to him that the Havoc gunner had temporarily lost track of them. They were split between two closely bunched houses, in groups of two. Leo and Farrington were a few houses ahead, loading the RPG. He knew there was little hope of taking this helicopter down. He figured it was a few hundred yards away, well out of reliable RPG range. The Havoc's targeting system rivaled the U.S. Army's AH-64 Apaches, and their little game of hide and seek in the village wouldn't last much longer.

Even if Leo managed to miraculously land a clean shot with the RPG, Petrovich wasn't convinced the rocket would have any effect. The Havoc was heavily armored like the Apache, a virtual warhorse in the sky. Their only hope was to hide close to the Spetsnaz and pray the Havoc crew didn't use rockets. He wasn't very hopeful. With the 30mm cannon providing suppressive fire, they couldn't effectively keep the Spetsnaz in place, and without the Spetsnaz nearby…they'd be rocket fodder. He raised his right hand and delivered a potentially suicidal hand signal to Farrington.

A devastating explosion filled Daniel's ears, and for a split second, he thought the Havoc crew had fired a salvo of 127mm rockets. Instinctively, they all flattened against the ground, but when the rockets didn't instantly tear through any of the structures around them, they executed Daniel's silent order. All of them burst forward from their cover, sprinting between houses in the direction of the massive detonation.

When Petrovich rounded the corner, he grinned wickedly as the burning Havoc banked sharply left and plummeted rapidly out of sight. Before he could visually reacquire the mortally damaged attack helicopter, a second, larger explosion sent another shockwave through the village, momentarily heating the cold Siberian air and sending burning metal fragments deep amidst the buildings. No one in Daniel's team said a word, as they raced to find new firing positions to engage whatever might be left of the Russian force.

Upon reaching the northernmost house several seconds later, he saw two flaming metal wrecks twisted together on a flat area of land barely fifty meters from the edge of the village. The out of control Havoc apparently veered directly into the Mi-8 transport helicopter that had landed to extract the remaining Russian ground forces, exploding both fuel tanks.