spies who deserved to die.”
Dennison’s chest grew tight, her breath shallow. She stood and came around the table, leaned over, and got into the colonel’s face. “Those men gave their lives to bring you back here. Oh, you’re going to talk. But first, I suspect, you’re going to bleed. A lot.”
“Like I said, you are a beautiful woman with a terrible job.” He laughed again, under his breath.
Her fist connected with his nose, driving his head back, and she thought
The door swung open and the guards rushed in, followed by Shakura. “Major, please, we have strict orders not—”
“I issued those orders,” she said, rubbing her knuckles.
Doletskaya faced her, blood streaming over his mouth. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For allowing me to bleed for my Motherland.”
She cursed at him.
He smiled, blood filling the cracks of his teeth. “Major Dennison, you are apparently the only
She regarded Shakura. “Clean him up. He’s off to Cuba.”
“I’m sorry, Major,” said the colonel.
She frowned.
“I’m sorry we don’t have more time to talk.” The guards took the colonel by the arms and forced him to his feet. “I wanted to express my condolences about your mother,” he added quickly.
“My mother?”
“The cancer. And yes, I wanted to tell you that you should talk to your sister, that she is still your sister despite your political differences. And I wanted to tell you that it’s okay to cry, late at night, like you do sometimes when you eat all the ice cream. The rocky road. It’s okay.”
She balled her hands into fists, glowered at him, flicked her glance to Shakura. “Get this…
Doletskaya winked. “
Chills ripped across her shoulders as they shoved him out of the room, blood dripping from his chin.
She trembled violently now, began to lose her breath.
“Major?” called Shakura. “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes.
Bared her teeth.
And inside, she screamed.
FOUR
“Oh, damn, Mick, we got only ten minutes till the Russians arrive.”
Staff Sergeant Raymond McAllen, leader of a six-man USMC Force Reconnaissance team, didn’t need his assistant, Sergeant Terry Jones, to remind him of that. He’d set his stopwatch within a minute after the eighteen- man platoon fast-roped down into the valley as their Black Hawk had thundered off to seek cover until they called her back.
“We got less time than that, Jonesy. But the crash site should be just over that ridge.”
“Yeah, but it don’t look good. No contact from them. We don’t even know if this guy is still alive.”
“Our job’s to find out. Come on!”
The sun was beginning to set over the Sierra Maestra mountains in southern Cuba, and the shadows grew longer across slopes covered in mud from the midday rains. McAllen and his men had already shouldered their way through some dense jungle in sweltering, humid air, but they were almost at the site.
And no, this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel) mission. Apparently, one of the passengers onboard the Learjet was a Russian colonel who’d been on his way to Guantanamo when the Russians had shot down his escort fighters. They’d also managed to strike a glancing blow to the jet, forcing it down into the mountains.
Fortunately, McAllen and his entire Force Recon company had been engaged in a weeklong, live-fire training exercise at Gitmo and been able to respond within minutes of the call.
Unfortunately, they’d been out in the field doing some physical training when the call had come, and they’d been forced to board the chopper with whatever they had, leaving behind their best high-tech toys — advanced body armor, weapons, and communications systems that were all part of the military’s Future Force Warrior program.
They’d get by with just the conventional gear. McAllen believed that if you depended too much upon technology in the field, you’d become sloppy and soft, a kid at a convenience store who can’t make change, a Marine who can’t aim because the computer does it for him.
He waved on the others, Jonesy first; then his two recon scouts, Corporals Palladino and Szymanski; his radio operator, Lance Corporal Friskis; and finally the team’s medic, Navy Corpsman Gutierrez, who carried the team’s biggest gun, the Squad Automatic Weapon, because putting more steel on target was the best form of preventative medicine.
Palladino and Szymanski moved out ahead, walking point, ready to throw hand signals or call in via the intra- team radio at their first sign of contact.
Meanwhile, the other two six-man teams were about three kilometers west, moving to head off part of a company-size Russian ground force that had already inserted, minutes after the crash. A second Russian team was just north of the site, and higher was scrambling to put another Force Recon platoon on the ground there, but McAllen still bet that his team would reach the jet before the Russians did.
Their friends in Moscow were taking no chances and assuming nothing. They’d actually planned in advance to drop troops on the ground and ensure that this colonel was dead.
That certainly had McAllen’s attention.
He pulled up the rear, sweeping the jungle with his carbine, head low, repeatedly stealing glances behind.
They stole their way even higher up the slope, boots digging deeper into the mud, as the mountain grew darker and the hoots and cries of birds seemed to drift off into an eerie silence, save for their footfalls. The stench of the crash grew stronger, a combination of mildew, smoke, and spilled fuel.
“Outlaw Three, this is Outlaw One, over,” called McAllen over the radio.
“Go ahead, One,” answered Palladino; he was also the team’s sniper, six feet of muscle and hard heart.
“Got eyes on the site, over?”
“Just now, but we’ll need to approach over that hill to the east. We can’t get down this way. Too steep. Come on up and have a look, over.”
“Coming up.”
After reaching the ridge and jogging over to where Palladino and Szymanski were hunkered down, McAllen caught his breath and saw what the sniper was talking about.
The approach was far too steep. Even so, this perch afforded a perfect view of the valley below.
The Learjet had burrowed into the side of the mountain, yet most of the fuselage was intact. Its wings were gone, though, its side door open, smoke still pouring from its engines and the long, meter-deep furrow stretching out behind. They couldn’t get to it, but circling around as Palladino had suggested would kill even more time.
“What do you want do, Sergeant?” asked Szymanski, his chiseled face and thick neck dappled with sweat.
“Shift around.”
“Uh-oh,” interrupted Palladino, staring through a pair of night-vision goggles into the gloom ahead. “Enemy contact, tree line north. At least six guys, maybe more. They’re moving in.”
McAllen tensed. So the Russians had beaten them to the site, but they hadn’t reached the jet itself yet. He
