Precipice: V Plague Book 9 (27 page)

The view of
the destroyed ships had caused a calm to descend over the General.  An
acceptance of his fate.  He had failed, and would pay the price. 
Perhaps if only the destroyer and the three frigates had been lost he could
have survived, but Peter the Great was the pride of the Russian Navy. 
There would be no coming back from this.

“Very well,”
he said.  “Take me to my headquarters.”

The pilot immediately
turned out of the orbit and streaked away from the deadly radiation emanating
from the sunken ship.

“Misha,” the
General spoke to his aide without taking his attention off the burning ships
behind them.  “Get my wife on the phone.”

“That fuckin’
Russian is beating on one of them women pretty bad,” Titus shouted over the
radio.

I had just
stepped into a three story building that overlooked the area where they were
being held.  One of the sniper teams we’d spotted was on the roof.

“Which
one?”  I asked, heart leaping in my chest.  I threw caution to the
wind and began racing up the stairs.

“The big
one, with the stitches on his head.”

“Which
woman, goddamn it!”  I almost shouted, turning the landing at the second
story.

“Sorry. 
The small, darker one.”

Martinez. 
I experienced a moment of relief that it wasn’t Katie, then rage that it was
Martinez being abused because of me.  Well, the fucker wanted to flush me
out.  He was about to get his wish.  Reaching the third floor I spent
precious time searching for access to the roof, finally finding it in a
maintenance closet at the end of the main hallway.

There was a
vertical ladder that ran up to a hatch set into the ceiling.  It was
pretty close to the middle edge of the building, and if I was remembering
correctly it should let me come out behind the sniper and his spotter. 
But a little distraction never hurts. 

Pulling out
the remote trigger, I selected the first channel which was keyed to the bomb in
the restaurant and pressed the
fire
button.  A heartbeat later an
explosion rocked the small town that was so loud I clearly heard it inside the
building. 

Rifle ready,
I climbed the ladder and cracked the hatch open a few inches.  I lifted my
head enough to see over the lip of the opening, finding the two Russians about
twenty yards away.  Their backs were to me.  Both were still prone,
in position, but their heads were turned in the direction of the large fireball
that was climbing into the sky.  Must have been propane tanks or something
very flammable in the restaurant that was touched off by the blast.  C-4
doesn’t do that by itself.

I pushed the
hatch open a couple of feet, climbed enough to get my shoulders above the roof
line and brought my rifle on target.  Two bursts into each did the
job.  Sure, it was probably overkill, but I was in the mood for
overkill. 

Worming my
way fully onto the roof, I stayed low.  There was still the other sniper
team.  They had a clear view of this roof, and I wasn’t about to announce
my presence or give them a target.

Reaching the
two Russians I’d just killed, I pulled the sniper back from the low parapet,
concealing him from view.  Shoving the body to the side I took his place,
leaving the spotter where he was.  If the other sniper took a good look
through his scope, I was fucked, but I planned to solve that problem.

I took a
moment to check the Dragunov rifle and make sure it was loaded and ready to
fire.  I had no reason to expect it wasn’t, but I also wasn’t about to
trust my life on the expectation that someone else had done what they should
have.  Settling in, I pulled the butt tight to my shoulder and pressed my cheek
to the stock. 

The view
through the scope was blurry and I had to adjust the focus for my eye,
everything suddenly snapping into sharp clarity.  I wanted to take the
time to check on the girls, but every second I didn’t eliminate the other
sniper was an opportunity for him to notice something was very wrong on this
roof.

There was a
sophisticated scope on the rifle, calculating distance to target automatically
when I placed the cross hairs on the other shooter’s face.  He was 512
meters from my position, and I had a problem.  I had no idea what caliber
the fucking Russian rifle was, which meant I had no idea how much to compensate
for bullet drop.

Then I
realized the fancy scope had already taken care of that for me when it measured
the distance to target.  Well fuck me if that isn’t convenient as all
hell.  With the scope automatically adjusting, all I had to do was put the
cross hairs on what I wanted to hit and pull the trigger.  Yeah.  It’s
really not that simple.

512 meters
is a long shot.  Not record setting by any means, but it’s still a long
shot for someone who doesn’t regularly train on long range shots.  There
was wind to take into account.  It was raining.  The humidity was
high which meant the air was denser.  I was guessing the Dragunov was most
likely chambered in 7.62 mm, and if I was right it would take the bullet two
thirds of a second to reach the target.  That provided a lot of time for
environmental forces to affect the trajectory.

And finally,
and maybe most importantly, if I wasn’t rock steady when I squeezed that
trigger, none of the rest of this shit mattered.  Wiggle the rifle a hair
when I pull the trigger and that movement would be magnified exponentially by
the time the bullet arrived on target.  It’s easy to miss, despite how deceptively
easy the guys and girls that are really good make it look.

This all
went through my head in under a second.  Body stilled, I held on the
sniper’s face, resting the crosshairs on his large, Slavic nose. 
Fortunately, he still hadn’t looked in my direction because I was taking my
sweet time.  Once I was comfortable with the shot I’d take on him, I
pivoted the muzzle to check the spotter.  He couldn’t be left alive to
sound the alarm.  My plan was to fire on the sniper and without waiting to
see if I had hit my target, turn and fire on the spotter.

This was
dangerous as hell.  If I missed the first shot, the sniper would be
putting a round through my skull while I was focused on hitting his
spotter.  But there wasn’t any other way.  If I waited until I was
sure the sniper was down before taking the second shot the man would have
plenty of warning and time to drop behind the parapet and start shouting the
alarm.

I was back
on the sniper, half a second from pulling the trigger when Titus suddenly spoke
in my ear, completely destroying my concentration.

“What the
hell you waiting for?”

“For fuck’s
sake, Titus.  Shut up!”  I hissed into the radio and settled my cheek
back onto the stock, peering through the scope.

I froze for a
heartbeat when I saw the other sniper with his rifle pointed directly at me,
noting his thumb shift as he took his rifle off safe.  Oh fuck me! 
Throwing myself to the side, I kept rolling when the rifle I’d just been
holding exploded from the impact of his bullet.  I stayed below the
parapet, crawling on my belly, cursing all the way to the roof hatch. 

They had me
located.  Time for another distraction.  As I slithered through the
opening and dropped to the floor I worked the setting on the trigger and
pressed the button again.  I heard the explosion almost two seconds later,
then a second after that a follow on blast that was so large it shattered
windows and shook dust out of the ceiling tiles to drift down onto my head.

The second
location I’d visited to plant a big chunk of C-4 was a propane and liquefied
natural gas distribution plant on the edge of town.  I’d stuck the
explosive to the side of a huge propane tank in the middle of a large lot that
was full of tanks brimming with highly flammable gasses.  There was
another even larger and louder explosion as I pounded down the stairs, knowing
I needed to get out of the building before the Russians converged on my
location and trapped me.

Reaching the
first floor I had my rifle up and ready as I burst out into the night. 
Two soldiers had just arrived, running up the low steps that led to the front
door.  They were less than twenty feet away when I emerged, carrying their
rifles high across their chests as they ran. 

Without
breaking stride, I pumped a burst into one of them, then slammed my shoulder
into the second one as he tried to move to the side and swing the muzzle of his
weapon in my direction.  He sprawled onto his back and I fired three
rounds into his head as I ran past.  There weren’t any more enemies
immediately visible and I headed for an overgrown hedge, pulling the trigger
out of my pocket and pressing the button after selecting the third location.

There was a
barely audible pop from far in the distance, then a few seconds later a
brilliant flash on the horizon followed by another thunderous shockwave rolling
across the small town.  I had visited the small airport on the opposite
side of town from the tank farm and wired up a fueling point and a couple of
helicopters that were on the ground while the aircrews took a break from the
search.

Making it to
the thick bush, I pushed inside and hid just as a squad of a dozen Russians
rounded the corner and ran to the front of the building I had just
exited.  They paused when they spotted the two I’d killed, the squad
leader motioning for half the men to proceed inside with him, leaving the other
half on watch at the front door.  They were amped up and on full alert,
their rifles up and scanning the surrounding area.

To the northeast
and west the horizon glowed a brilliant, deep orange from the fires at the
propane tanks and the airport.  Smaller, secondary explosions were adding
to both conflagrations and it looked, sounded and smelled like a war
zone.  I was only sorry I’d run out of C-4.  I would have been happy
to level the entire fucking town with the Russians in it.

Checking the
sight lines from the building with the remaining sniper, I chose a path that I
believed would shield me from his view and his rifle.  I hoped.  It
was time to go get my wife.

Katie,
Rachel and Irina all screamed at Grushkin as he continued to pummel
Martinez.  He ignored them, lost in a fury born of frustration with the
events of the past day and the pain of his damaged hand.  The two American
women struggled in the grip of the soldiers that were holding them back, both
of them trying to fight free, but the handicap of one hand cuffed over their
heads made it impossible.

Finally, he
stepped away from her, panting.  Martinez hung suspended by the handcuff,
unconscious once again.  Blood poured from her broken nose and numerous
lacerations on her face and scalp from the beating she had received. 
Looking down at the ground, Grushkin spotted his pistol and scooped it up in
his good hand. 

The three
women stopped shouting and screaming when his arm came up, the muzzle of the
weapon only a couple of feet from Martinez’ forehead.  His finger began to
tighten on the trigger, then the night lit up as as loud explosion sounded from
only a few blocks away.  A moment later there was a secondary blast and a
ball of fire climbed into the sky.

“What was
that?”  Grushkin whirled and shouted at Major Buzinsky.

While he was
distracted, a medic dashed forward and retrieved the two severed fingers from
the rain soaked ground.  He rinsed them with sterile saline before
sandwiching them between chemical ice packs in a small cooler. 
Tentatively he approached the Colonel as he waited on his aide to report.

“Comrade
Colonel, your hand,” he said softly.

Grushkin
looked down at his injury, grunted and held it out for the medic to
treat.  As the man began cleaning the open wounds where the digits had
been bitten off, another explosion ripped the night.  This one was farther
away, but a second later an earth shattering blast lit the entire horizon and
the windows in all the buildings around the park were blown out.

“Are the
Americans here?”  Grushkin screamed at Buzinsky as he watched a massive,
glowing mushroom cloud form on the edge of town and begin boiling skyward.

“No reports
of contact with the enemy, sir.  I’m still trying to…” the man paused, pressing
the radio headset tighter against his ear.

He listened
for a moment before spinning and pointing at a building on the edge of the
park.

“Enemy on
the roof,” he shouted, then bellowed orders into the radio to get troops on
their way to the location.  The soldiers holding Katie and Rachel released
them and ran for the indicated building.

“He’s
coming,” Martinez was groggy, having regained consciousness and spoke as best
she could through her broken mouth.  “He’s coming, and he’s going to bend
you over and fuck you like a…”

She never
finished the sentence.  Grushkin lifted his arm and fired a shot that took
off most of the top of her head.  Her body jerked once, then went limp,
hanging by the arm from the handcuff.  The other three women stared in
shock at their dead friend, unable for a moment to comprehend what they had
just witnessed.

Grushkin was
turning back to Buzinsky when another blast added to the chaos of the
night.  This one was to the west, and another fiery pillar began
ascending.

“Report, Major!” 
Grushkin roared, breathing heavy and glaring at the younger man.

Buzinsky
listened intently for several minutes, studiously ignoring the pistol that was
still gripped in Grushkin’s hand.  He barked several orders and turned to
fully face the Colonel when reports began coming in from around the small city.

“Sir,” the Major
called, radio still pressed to his ear.  “The first bomb was a building
where the men had gathered to eat.  It is believed that over four hundred are
dead, and two hundred injured from the blast.  The second location was a
liquefied gas plant, and the third was the airport our aviation assets were
staging out of.  We lost four helicopters and their flight crews and
appears all of the ground support staff as well.”

“Order all
remaining men to converge on our location,” Grushkin barked.  “Have them
form a protective ring around the park.”

“Yes,
Comrade General,” the Major said and immediately began relaying orders over the
radio.