'Forget the prisoner,' he told the senior pilot. 'What I need is a rocket and gun attack on the roof to clear it off. The other bird needs to get a picture of what's pinning my two men on the wall and eliminate it.'
'Wilco,' the pilot answered simply.
'GRENADE,' Konstantin shouted at Musin, once again, again signaling that he wanted it dropped. After it exploded below, he thought, Ought serve both to discourage pursuit and make absolutely sure the wog has enough time to finish strangling. Though that's probably overkill at this point.
In mere moments, so it seemed, after the grenade went off, the roof began to shed dust and plaster as one rocket after another slammed into it. There was a lull, quickly followed by another salvo of rockets and what sounded like a series of very close together grenade explosions.
'The roof should be clear now, Major. My wingman is still hunting for whoever has your men pinned.
They emerged onto the roof cautiously, maintaining that caution until they were pretty certain that the MI-28 had done its job and left nothing alive. Then the four of them, including Lada, raced for the eastern edge of the thing.
Konstantin looked down and could see both Litvinov and Galkin, separated by nearly a hundred meters. He could also see flashes of fire coming from two places at ground level. I can see why the helicopters are having trouble finding them.
Rather than shout, Konstantin used the short range radio. 'Krav?'
'Comrade Major?'
'Can you get a grenade close enough to those groups to matter?'
Kravchenko, too, looked over. 'Sure. Easy.'
'Do it, then.' To the helicopters he said, 'Watch for the grenade flash.' Going back to short range radio, he told Litvinov. 'The helicopters probably won't be able to kill the people who have you pinned. They might be able to drive them back for a while. Your choice if you want to try to retrieve Galkin.'
Litvinov snorted. 'Like that's a choice, Comrade Major. He may be a queer but he's still our queer.'
'Good man,' Konstantin said. 'Exactly so.'
Litvinov saw the grenades go off, then watched as the MI-28 rose above the wall and began to dance, its tail doing the My girl's name is Senora thing, its chin gun pelting first one section, then another, then back to the first. It expended all rounds quickly, then veered off to the east.
Gathering his courage, Litvinov got to his hands and feet and did a sort of sprinting crawl down to where Galkin's body lay. He was breathing, Litvinov saw, but also bleeding from more places than he cared to count. Picking the man up, under his arms, Litvinov slung him over the parapet and then lowered him as far as he could down the wall. Then he let go. Galkin fell a few feet, than crumpled bonelessly to the ground.
Litvinov moved down a few feet from where he'd dropped Galkin. With an unvocalized prayer, he hopped his belly up to the crenellated wall, and swung his feet over. A couple of rounds struck the stuccoed mud brick below, where he'd been standing a moment before.
Slithering backwards, he lowered himself as far as he could, then also let go. When his feet hit the ground he did the very same parachute landing fall he'd learned many years ago at the airborne school at Ryazan. As he had there, more than once, he hit his head on something, hard.
Even as he cursed, he was moving to Galkin. Still cursing, he bent, got the other into a fireman's carry, and stood up. Then, as fast he as could, given the load, he began to sprint for Baluyev. It was an easy direction to hold because the praporschik was already firing at someone or something atop the wall, even as the other helicopter settled to the sand not far behind him.
The major watched Litvinov go. He also watched some of the guard force race to the wall once the helicopter had moved off. He and Kravchenko leaned over the side and pelted those guards with unexpected fire. They got some, But not enough.
'COME ON, KRAV,' the major shouted, pushing the other in the direction of the helicopter, which had now landed on the roof. When they got to the door, they found Musin already buckled in, with Lada sitting more or less comfortably on his lap. Tim was trying very hard and somewhat unsuccessfully to hide a smile.
Ignoring the smile, Konstantin pushed Kravchenko in, then followed, putting on the flight helmet even before seeing to his own buckling in.
'Get us the fuck out of here!'
The MI-28 lifted suddenly with the whine of rotors and jets, before nosing down and skimming out over the palace walls.
With the sun rising up out over the Indian Ocean, the pilot buzzed Konstantin. 'Major,' he said, 'bad news. I'm sorry, but your man in the other helicopter died. There was nothing his mates could do.'
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Take pity of your town, and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of deadly murder, spoil, and villainy.
-Shakespeare, 'Henry V'
D-Day, Rako, Ophir
The sun was a bare hint, not yet crept over the horizon but reflected still from scattered clouds. The reflection shone down on a column that appeared mostly made of dust, but was, in fact, four tanks, six gunned Elands, three Ferrets, and rather more than a dozen Elands without turrets-headquarters, infantry carriers of which there was now one fewer than there'd been, mortar and ammunition carriers, and an ambulance.
The company had begun the march west with six tanks. Two of those had fallen by the wayside-victims of poor maintenance or victims of drivers who, with the exception of swollen- and bent-nosed Lana, hadn't more than
