barbar-ians. They must be liquidated. As your captain, it is not something I enjoy to order you into battle against your fellow countrymen, but the cause we serve is just. We do not kill our comrades, we kill our enemies. And we had better be as efficient as possi-ble in this for once we penetrate the Womb, we shall be out-numbered at least forty to one. If the women and support personnel have combat skills, then eighty to one. But we are Special Forces. We are the best. We have been trained to march in the vanguard or hold the barricade. We take with us the pride of our heritage, the faith of the Soviet People. Our personal honor.”
He turned away. Along the road now he saw one of the four wheel drive patrols. And he checked getting the Walther from beneath his tunic one more time.
Chapter Thirty-one
In the rocks above, Rourke watched — he could see Vladov and his men. He could see the sentry vehicle. He charged the chamber of the Dragunov SVD’s bolt, running one of the 7.62mm type 54 R rounds into the chamber, his hand wrapping back around the pistol grip through the skeletonized buttstock.
He settled himself, his legs wife spread, his breathing even, his right eye squinted through the dark lens of his sun-glasses against the light, the scope—more than fourteen inches long—well back from the action and closer to his eye than he would have liked, despite the rubber eye cup. But he settled into it, into the unfamiliar rifle, the weapon in his hands rock steady.
“What the hell’s the range of that thing?” Reed asked from behind him.
Without moving, Rourke murmured, “Maximum effec-tive range is eight hundred meters with the specially selected ammo the gun’s issued with. But I don’t like a single trigger system on a sniper rifle. And I don’t like a semi-automatic in a sniper rifle. And I’ve never fired a Dragunov before so I don’t know what kind of quirks it might have. And if I do fire it, the scope’s gonna go banging right into my eye and so my follow-up shot’s gonna be slow and likely gonna be off. It uses the same rimmed cartridge they use in their PK GPMG and the RPK LMG—high pressure load. Any more questions?”
“No.”
“Then shut up and let me concentrate,” Rourke rasped, watching now as Vladov led his men down into the roadway. Soon, a runner should be coming back from Natalia that a convoy had been targeted.
Soon, Vladov would either flag down the approaching sentry vehicle or attempt to stop it on the fly. Rourke settled the scope on the machinegunner in the back of the four wheel drive vehicle. A quick shot would put him away and give Vladov’s men a chance to stop the vehicle before get-ting gunned down.
He waited, suddenly remembering when it had all started—when he and Paul had taken cover in the rocks above the wreckage of the jet liner and he had used his own sniping rifle against the brigands who were systematically murdering the survivors of the crash.
How long ago had it been, he wondered, not consciously wanting to remember?
And then the vehicle began to slow, the face of the man with the machinegun something he could read through the Dragunov’s PSO-1 sight. There was suspicion written all over it.
“Watch out,” Rourke told Reed.
Chapter Thirty-two
Captain Vladov stood in the middle of the roadway, his right hand raised. He shouted, “Halt!”
The vehicle had already begun to slow, but even at the distance, he did not like the look in the eyes of the soldier manning the RPK light machinegun in the vehicle’s rear.
He had no story to tell—military small talk for thirty sec-onds or so until he could get into position, then he would draw the gun and kill the machinegunner.
The vehicle ground to a halt, the brakes screeching slightly.
Vladov approached the vehicle, the man beside the driver moving his AKM slightly.
Vladov kept walking, his men behind him — he could hear their combat booted footfalls on the road surface. “I seek information. There was a convoy, just going up the road ten minutes or so ago—”
“Yes, Comrade Captain,” the man with the AKM began. “I too have seen this convoy—nothing seemed to be irregu-lar.”
“My opinion,” Vladov rasped, “exactly—what a pity, no?” The butt of the Walther PPK/S filled his right hand, the silencer hanging up on the inner seam of his tunic.
The driver was starting to move his hands on the wheel, the man from the front seat opening his mouth, raising his AKM.
Vladov’s eyes shifted to the machinegunner—the weapon was swinging toward him, the bolt being worked.
The silencer— “Damnit!” He ripped the silencer clear of his clothing.
Vladov thrust the pistol forward and pumped the trigger, the safety off before he had repositioned the pistol in his belt the last time. One round—a neat hole where the right eyebrow of the machinegunner had been. A second round—the bridge of the nose ruptured blood.
He swung the silenced Walther to his right. Daszrozinski and Corporal Ravitski were on the man with the AKM, Daszrozinski ripping open the man’s throat with a knife.
Ravitski was thrusting a bayonet into the soldier’s abdo-men. Three of Vladov’s men were swarming over the hood of the vehicle toward the driver, but the vehicle was already in motion, moving.
Vladov fired the Walther once, then again and again, into the back of the driver’s head and neck. The driver slumped forward.
Ravitski had the wheel, leaning across the already dead soldier with the AKM, his hands visibly groping for the emergency brake.
The vehicle stopped.
Vladov shot his cuff, looking at the face of his watch— eight minutes, perhaps less before the next patrol vehicle would be along.
“Quickly—their uniforms,” and he dropped the safety on the Walther PPK/S American’s slide and started toward the vehicle. “There is little time, Comrades.”
Chapter Thirty-three
The runner had returned almost the same instant Vladov had shot the driver of the patrol vehicle, almost the same instant Rourke had begun a trigger squeeze on the Dragunov sniper rifle. But as the driver had slumped forward across the wheel, Rourke had eased the pressure, then set the safety to listen as the runner detailed to Reed the partic-ulars of the convoy Natalia had selected. From the man’s words, it seemed that the convoy would intersect the por-tion of the road where now Vladov’s men replaced the KGB in under ten minutes.
Rourke looked at the runner. “You rest easy here for a couple of minutes. Join us down by the road unless the con-voy’s too close—if that’s the case stay here until it’s through—don’t wanna tip our hands.”
Rourke pushed himself up, snatching up his own rifles, slinging each cross body to opposite sides of his torso, then picking up the Dragunov. “What the hell’s that, sir?” the enlisted man asked.
Rourke looked at him and smiled. “Ask the colonel later—he knows all about it now.”
Holding the Dragunov in his right fist, Rourke started down from the rocks, the distance to the road approxi-mately six hundred yards as he estimated it, but slow going because of the rocky, uneven terrain.
He glanced behind him once—Reed was coming, his M-16 in both fists at high port.
Rourke lost himself in thought as he ran. He would never understand Reed. It seemed as though gruffness and abra-siveness were a shield he used to cover whatever really lay inside him. He had observed the growing respect in Reed for Vladov and his men, noted the grudging quality of Reed’s remark to Vladov—good luck.
Rourke jammed a deadfall pine, sidestepping a depres-sion that was covered by some of the lingering mountain snow—but the snow was sagged downward at the center, betraying the depression beneath. He reached the trail—it would be easier going now, he thought.
He glanced behind him again, Reed was coming, and from the sniping position in the rocks above, the runner was starting down.
