The new arrivals, faces concealed behind balaclavas, had timed everything perfectly. The first man to emerge had already pulled the pin from a stun grenade, the fuse burning away as he threw it. It exploded in mid-air a second later – at head height right in front of Suarez and his group. The blinding flash and earsplitting detonation hit the unprepared men as solidly as a physical blow, obliterating all senses.
The utter helplessness of their victims didn’t encourage mercy from the attackers. Two men opened fire with suppressed, laser-sighted M4 assault rifles, short, controlled bursts slicing down four of the militiamen. The other survived only by chance, having tripped in his dizzied state and fallen into some bushes.
Callas lowered his hands. Even prepared and protected, the stun grenade’s blast had still been painful. But he ignored his ringing ears, instead drawing his gun.
Suarez staggered, groping blindly. Machado had managed to bring an arm up in time to block the flash, but was still reeling. He opened his eyes, and saw the general standing contemptuously before him—
A single shot from Callas’s pistol hit him in the forehead, blowing out the back of his skull in a gruesome spray.
One of the men in black ran to Callas. Though he was holding an M4, the gleam of his holstered pistol instantly told the general who he was: Stikes. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Callas replied, pulling out the earplugs.
‘Good. Get Suarez aboard. We’ll cover you.’
Callas grabbed Suarez by the collar and hustled him along.
Even though the mercenaries’ rifles were silenced, the grenade and Callas’s gunshot had attracted attention. More militia were running towards the helipad. The surviving member of the presidential escort pushed himself to his knees, feeling for his gun—
One of the mercs, a muscular colossus, grabbed him by both ankles and yanked him off the ground as easily as if he were a doll. The giant spun like a hammer-thrower, whirling the man round – and letting go. The Venezuelan flew screaming over the bushes, slamming down like a human bomb on the leading militiamen and knocking them flat.
Stikes’s other men used more lethal weapons. The flat thuds of suppressed fire mingled with screams as they picked off other targets.
Callas pushed Suarez to the Hind’s hatch. The President was starting to recover from the blast, and resisted. Callas jammed his pistol’s still hot muzzle under his chin and forced him inside.
Shouts from above. Two militiamen ran along one of the palace’s rooftop balconies, carrying a heavy machine gun. Stikes fired at them, but his shots cracked against the thick stonework as they ducked. One man slammed the gun’s bipod down on the parapet, his companion already loading a belt of ammunition as they prepared to fire on the mercenaries—
A black-clad man fired first. Not a rifle, but an RPG-7 rocket launcher. The warhead streaked up at the roof, blasting the parapet and the men behind it to pieces. Chunks of masonry rained down on people running out of the building.
‘Let’s go!’ shouted Stikes. The group retreated to the helicopter. He fired another burst, sending a man flailing to the ground, and followed.
He jumped into the cabin, slamming the hatch. Gurov, piloting from the rearmost of the two bulbous cockpits, increased power. The Hind lurched into the air.
A piercing clang echoed through the cabin: a bullet hit. Stikes hurriedly strapped himself into the seat beside Suarez, Callas holding the President at gunpoint on the other side. The helicopter was heavily armoured, but not invulnerable. He pulled off his balaclava and donned a headset. ‘Okay!’ he yelled. ‘Hose them down!’
In the forward cockpit, the Hind’s gunner – an Armenian, Krikorian – grinned and pulled a trigger.
The helicopter’s nose cannon pivoted, unleashing a fearsome stream of fire from its four rapidly spinning barrels. Through the infrared display in the gunner’s helmet visor, the Miraflores palace was transformed almost into a video game, human beings a hot white against the greys and blacks of the grounds. All he had to do was look at each target, sweeping a cursor over them – and the human shapes exploded into glowing chunks as the blazing Gatling gun followed his movements. Bullets clonked off the cockpit canopy and hull, but the Hind’s armour shrugged off the 7.62mm rounds spitting from the militia’s AK-103s. The men firing at him were picked out by brighter flashes from their weapons; like a modern-day Gorgon, he killed them with a glance.
The Hind wheeled over the palace. Men on the upper balconies opened fire, only to be cut to pieces by more storms of gunfire. The helicopter kept rising, turning southeast and sweeping past skyscrapers.
‘What’s our status?’ Stikes said into the headset. ‘Did we take any damage?’
‘No, we’re okay,’ Gurov replied. ‘Did you get him?’
‘We got him. How long until we land?’
‘We can be there in – yah!’ He recovered from his surprise and muttered in Russian before returning to English. ‘We have company. Another
‘Left side, ten o’clock.’
Stikes loosened his seatbelt so he could look through the hatch window. Formation lights blinked in the darkness over Caracas – the other Hind.
Catching part of Stikes’s conversation with the pilot, Callas put on headphones. Still pressing his gun against his president’s chest, he peered through the window. ‘Do they know we have Suarez aboard?’
‘Yes,’ said Stikes calmly. ‘Otherwise they would have shot at us by now.’
Gurov’s voice came over the headsets. ‘They are on the radio . . . they are ordering us to fly ahead of them to a military base, where we will surrender and turn over Suarez.’
‘Will we now?’ Stikes said. He pulled his straps tight once more, giving his client a sly smile. ‘General, you’ve
