Black Flagged Redux (35 page)

If they could see lights inside the apartments with second generation civilian night vision scopes, the Russians could see them, too. Russian units would be equipped with fourth generation night vision optics, thermal imaging equipment and infrared detection gear. Based on what they witnessed all afternoon, the Russians were scouring the city with no rules of engagement.

Upon reaching the last building before the highway, Daniel signaled for them all to hold at the corner. He lowered his body and crawled through the dirty snow along a row of dead bushes to the front of the building. He raised his head far enough to see down the road to the south and did the same for the north. Nothing. No illumination or signs of movement. He pulled out his night vision scope and took a look in each direction.

The green image didn't reveal any hidden surprises, but it emphasized the limitations of their night vision gear. The persistent, thin haze blanketing Monchegorsk during the day remained at night to reduce the effective visual range through his scope. For longer distance spotting, they would be better off using the naked eye. The Russians wouldn't have this problem with the newer generation low-light technology. Daniel's team would have to be extremely cautious when making decisions based on long-range detection capabilities.

"One person at a time will crawl up. Stay low. If a vehicle approaches from the south, this wall will be exposed, but you should have enough cover. When you get to the corner, watch the road for a minute to be sure it’s clear, then sprint across. Rally point is behind the gas station."

He heard the rest of the team whisper their acknowledgment and glanced down the road in each direction. All clear, he hoped. Daniel was on his feet in a flash, sprinting in the direction of the gas station. He crossed the road diagonally and skirted the edge of the station's parking lot, headed straight for a large trash dumpster behind the small building. He reached the back wall and slammed his left foot into the door, which gave slightly. He stepped back and kicked it again, splintering the door frame and sending the door inward. He unslung his rifle and moved quickly to the outside corner of the gas station.

"All clear at the station. The back door is open. Rally point inside," he said.

A figure appeared across the street, barreling in his direction. A few minutes later, they huddled inside the frigid gas station. Sergei was the last to arrive.

"I didn't see anything on the road. I think we're good," he said.

"All right. Let's move out. Schafer, you'll bring up the rear. Stay back far enough to watch over us and provide cover if anything pops up," Daniel said.

Schafer gave him a thumbs up that he could barely see in the dark.

"We all need to be on the lookout for snipers. If you hear a snap or see a flash…sprint for three hundred and sixty degree cover. Whatever you do, don't stay in place. I hunted groups like this for two years, and the only thing that ever saved my targets was an immediate panicked sprint for cover."

"I thought you didn't miss," Farrington said.

"I don't. I was talking about the only response that kept me from killing everyone in the group."

"We need to get moving," Farrington said.

"I'll take point. Farrington, Sergei and Leo bring up the middle. Schafer, you know what to do."

"You're never going to call me Yuri, are you?" Farrington said.

"Probably not. Move out," Daniel said and disappeared running.

Fifty minutes later, Daniel walked slowly through a small children's playground. An apartment building loomed overhead, yielding no signs of life. He scanned the windows, aiming the rifle where he looked. It looked dead, but they knew better. He slowly approached a door on the ground level and squinted intensely at the dark gray and blue image provided by the naked eye. He could barely see twenty feet in front of him.

"Do you see anything on the ground level?"

"Negative. I still have a few windows on the third and fourth floor with activity," Schafer said from his over watch position in the distance.

"Roger."

He reached the door and leaned against the concrete wall to its right, extending his right hand to test the door handle. It didn't budge, but he could tell that the door opened inward, which was a good thing if they had to use brute force. Daniel removed both of his thin gray Nomex gloves and stuffed them into cargo pockets. He retrieved a small zippered kit from his backpack and started using the contents to open the door's lock. He tried several combinations of small tools until he felt the tumbler move. He squeezed the thumb mechanism on the top of the handle and pushed inward on the door, which moved effortlessly on its hinges. Perfect.

"We're in. Move the team up."

Daniel moved into the apartment, and noted that the temperature inside didn't improve much from the outside. The rancid smell of decomposition hit him suddenly, which sent a few waves of panic through him. He was in the dark with dead bodies. He put his gloves back on and took out a small flashlight. He turned it on and pointed it down the hallway. He saw dead bodies stacked floor to ceiling against the front doors of the building. Something yanked the flashlight out of his hand.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Farrington said. He turned the light off and handed it back to Petrovich. "Use your night vision."

The rest of the team assembled inside, except for Schafer, who would watch the building from the outside and provide early warning if the Russians approached. Using his night vision scope instead of a flashlight, Daniel could now see that this was the custodial level and contained no apartments. Large pipes attached to the ceiling ran the length of the hallway. The doors they could see would likely lead to large boilers or furnace equipment.

"We'll head up those stairs to the third floor and hit two rooms at once. Third door and eighth door on the right. I'll stack up with Leo on the far door. Yuri and Sergei take the closer one."

"If we have the doors right. Could be two or three windows per apartment," Leo said.

"We'll figure it out. We need to find what we're looking for in this building. The gunfire is increasing out there," Daniel said.

"I heard helicopters," Farrington said.

That was all anyone needed to say. The team jogged toward the staircase on the northern side of the building and opened the door. The staircase contained no windows, so Daniel flashed his light up the stairwell. Empty. They quietly climbed to the second floor and approached a door. Daniel peered through the window and saw nothing but darkness. He opened the door several inches and took another look with his night vision scope. He saw trash and assorted debris, but no bodies. They hadn't detected any signs of life on the second floor from the outside, and it looked to be no different on the inside.

"Clear," he whispered.

The team continued to the third floor, hugging the walls and keeping their weapons focused on the door leading into the third floor's main hallway. They had counted at least six sources of light on this level, so they approached the door cautiously. Daniel moved his hand to the door handle and pulled it gently, but it didn't move.

"Locked," he whispered.

Farrington moved to the other side of the door, followed closely by Sergei, who glanced up into the darkness of the stairwell toward the fourth floor. Farrington edged his head closer to the door's window and peeked into the hallway, pulling it back immediately. He shook his head and removed his night vision scope, placing it against the glass. He used his right hand to signal for Daniel to work on the door's lock. Daniel removed the same kit he used earlier from one of the pouches on his vest and started to use the two tools that had opened the ground level door. He knew exactly what he needed to do to manipulate the lock's tumblers.

As soon as he felt the tumblers move, the door slammed inward, knocking both Farrington and Petrovich to the concrete floor of the stairwell. Blinding lights and screams filled the stairwell from every direction, and Daniel felt himself ripped off the floor, onto his knees. Someone kneeled on the back of his legs, holding them down, and his arms were quickly pinned behind him. The only thing he didn't hear was gunfire, which for the moment was a good thing.

He was too stunned to react and tried to look around before a dark bag was placed over his head. He felt hard metal press against the side of his skull and figured there was no point in trying to flip the guy restraining his arms. He hoped the rest of his team came to the same conclusion. If they had been captured by civilians, they had a good shot at surviving. When the yelling and struggling calmed, a thick, authoritarian Russian voice emerged.

"You'd all be dead by now if this one hadn't spoken English downstairs," the voice said.

"Even as you approached the building, a few of my people didn't think you were Russian. Who are you?"

"American Special Forces," Daniel said, in Russian.

"Now you speak Russian?" he said and ripped the hood off Daniel's head.

Someone aimed a flashlight directly in Daniel's eyes, partially blinding him, but he had seen enough to know that the rest of his team was on their knees with bags over their heads. Roughly a dozen loosely uniformed men crowded the stairwell landing. Most of them were occupied with restraining his team. A large man stood in front of him, wearing Russian Army camouflage and a large brown fur hat with side flaps. He held an AKS-74u fitted with a bipod and holographic sight. A large night vision rifle scope was tethered by a D-ring to a loop on his camouflage jacket.

"That scope should be attached to a rifle," Daniel said.

"Wouldn't do this crew any good on a rifle. You don't look like Special Forces. This rifle is older than you are and most of your outer gear is old Russian Army issue. What is your mission here?" the leader said.

"To assess and report. We suspect whatever happened here is linked to a rogue Russian bioweapons engineer," Daniel said.

The man exchanged glances with a few of his men and walked over to confer with a man standing halfway up the stairs. He asked a question from the stairs.

"Do they think this is contagious?"

"No. We think this is a form of weaponized encephalitis. Most likely delivered directly through the city's water supply."

"Encephalitis? Whatever it is, it's making people sick in the head. Half the city went crazy. What are you supposed to do with the information?"

"Transmit immediately via satellite and leave."

"You have a satellite phone?"

"Phone with high bandwidth rig," Daniel said.

He heard Farrington start to yell, but the operative was quickly muffled.

"We'll need to take that phone. The world needs to know what happened here. What our government is doing."

"How about we come to an agreement?"

"An agreement? We're in the position to be making demands, not the other way around," the man said.

"More or less true, but the phone isn't on either of us, and it'll disappear if we don't reach an agreement."

An excited voice yelled down the stairs. "Helicopters!"

"Where is the phone? With the other guy outside?"

"He’s listening to this entire exchange, so I recommend we cut the shit. We're on the same side," Daniel said.

The man spoke into a small radio he had kept concealed in his camouflage jacket and listened for the faint reply.

"Fuck! Your man bolted. What do you want?” he said and issued orders down the stairs.

"I need to know exactly what happened here and I need tissue samples. Preferably a live sample," Daniel said.

"You want to take someone back with you?" the man said.

"Someone that can move on their own. One of your soldiers," Daniel said.

"These aren't all soldiers, but we have plenty of candidates for you to take back," he said. He cocked his head and listened to the radio. "Fucking helicopters are inbound. You need to get your guy into this building immediately. He won't last very long out there. Thermal imaging. 30mm guns will chew him up and spit him out," he said.

"Do we have a deal?" Daniel demanded.

"What do I get in return?"

"I'll give you the satellite rig."

"Can it scan documents?" the man said.

"It comes with a digital camera for that purpose. I can hear the helicopters now. We need to wrap this up and get my guy inside. He has the satellite phone," Daniel said.

"I'll need you to help me get documents," the man said.

"What kind of documents?"

"The kind you can only find in a command vehicle," he replied.

"You have plenty of soldiers for that," Daniel said.

"The soldiers I have are military police reservists. Most of the men and women fighting in the city are civilians. I need Special Forces types to take down a command BTR."

"Release my men immediately and return their weapons. Then we have a deal," Daniel said.

The man ordered their release and Daniel struggled to his feet.

Farrington immediately got in Daniel's face. "We don't have time for diversions or passengers. We need to take tissue samples, interrogate the locals and get the fuck out of here," he said.

"Hold on. Schafer, can you get back to the building without exposing yourself to the birds?"

"I'm on my way back. The sounds are still muffled. I should be fine. ETA, one minute."

He returned his attention to Farrington. "Yuri, it's too late for that. A deal's a deal. It's not like we had a lot of negotiating power. How long do you think it would have taken them to find the phone?" he asked, patting Farrington's chest.

"You were bluffing me?" the former soldier said.

"Not really. Schafer has the high bandwidth rig. Where do we go from here?"

"Out of this building. We moved our headquarters here earlier in the day, but it appears that we have attracted enough attention to bring them into the area."

"When are we getting our weapons back? They took them upstairs," Farrington demanded.

"You're not getting those rifles back," the man said.

"What the fuck? It was part of the deal and—"

"Those rifles are shit. We have better weapons for you…unless you want your forty-year-old Kalashnikov back. You should keep the PPS though. We can make use of that," he said.