Net Force

eyebrows.

If this operation failed, he'd sure as hell get a lot of time to practice his laughing, probably a long, long way from anything connected to Net Force. Though he didn't think he'd feel much like yuk-yukking it up for a while.

Sunday, October 10th, 12:12 a.m. Grozny

'She's at top speed now, sir,' the pilot yelled. He had to yell to be heard over the Huey's rotor and wind noise. All those action vids where they showed people having normal conversations inside a big chopper with the doors open, like two aristocrats sharing tea in an air-conditioned Rolls Royce, were pure fantasy. Those vids were produced by somebody who had probably never even seen a helicopter close up. Even the radio chatter in the headphones was hard to hear.

'How long?' Howard shouted.

'Two, three minutes,' the pilot yelled back. 'There's the edge of the tank farm ahead, to the right. And there's the river. I'm going to take us right over the main road.'

The ten men assigned to this craft carried H&K subguns and holstered side arms—9mm Brownings, along with Cold Steel sheath knives. They wore plain coveralls, but they also wore flak vests and generic Kevlar helmets and boots. The gear was all over-the-counter commercial — the subguns were from Germany, the pistols from Belgium, the vests Israeli, the knives Japanese. This was not supposed to be a stand-up fight, and if any gear got left behind, it wasn't going to point to the United States.

The troops did wear dog tags, but that didn't matter — they weren't leaving any personnel behind. Either they all left or they all stayed.

'There's the truck!' Fernandez yelled.

'And there's trouble,' Howard said.

A convoy of military-style vehicles, three of them, was fast approaching the dead truck from the other direction. The lead vehicle was a Jeep-clone with a light machine gun mounted on it amidships, and a figure in camo manning the weapon. The second vehicle was a police car with a flashing blue light. The third vehicle was a large SWAT-style van, also with a light blinking atop it. Even over the roar of the noise in the copter, they could hear the sirens.

'Well, shit,' Fernandez said.

Howard yelled at the pilot. 'Will my headset reach C2?'

'Yes, sir, it should.'

Howard trigged his com. To the commander of the other copter, Howard said, 'C2, this is Alpha Wolf, do you copy?'

'Alpha Wolf, we copy your trans.'

'C2, I want you to stand away, repeat, stand away. Circle back and we'll call if we need you. No point in giving them two targets.'

'Yes, sir.'

To his pilot, Howard said, 'Put it down, Loot. Between our truck and the incoming.'

'Yes, sir.'

Howard's stomach lurched as the bird dropped toward the road. He felt his skin tighten. 'Nobody fires unless fired on! Deploy in a staggered grid and stand ready.'

Howard looked at the uprushing road. No cover, but he wouldn't start blasting in the middle of an oil-tank field if it was his property. He was banking on the Chechen force commander's surprise and sense of responsibility. If it was Howard running some out-of-the-way post, and he got a call to investigate a shooting in the middle of the night, and an unmarked copter put down and disgorged armed and unidentified troops, he would hesitate before opening fire — as long as they didn't shoot first. There would be some important questions he'd want answers to: Who were they? What were they doing there? Could they be his own, doing some covert deal? Before you started blasting, you needed some information. It was one thing to shoot at some criminals in a truck you thought might have a hostage, but if you cut your own troops down, that would be bad for your career. If you riddled a bunch of oil tanks with AP rounds and created knee-deep pools of the stuff, that would also be bad. In the Chechen's place, Howard would be making some fast calls, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

The Huey touched down. 'Lock and load!' Howard yelled.

He checked his own weapon to make sure it was ready, then went out to collect his squad and their catch.

40

Sunday, October 10th, 12:18 a.m. Grozny

The three Chechen vehicles skidded to a halt as Howard and his troops piled out of the Huey and spread out, weapons held ready but not locked on targets. The Chechens had the advantage as they bailed from their rides — they could use their vehicles for cover. There were fifteen, maybe eighteen, Chechens in military gear, and they deployed, pointing their weapons from behind the Jeep-clone, the van and the police car.

Howard's men were in the open, and the pucker-factor here was extremely high. A car body would stop a lot of small-arms fire; thin air would not.

'Marcus!' Howard said, quietly enough so he hoped his voice wouldn't carry to the Chechens. 'Get the package into the bird and then get out here.'

Behind him, the squad hustled Plekhanov toward the Huey. Marcus was the language expert, and as soon as he had the Russian onboard, he hopped back out and came to stand next to Howard.

Sixty meters away, somebody in the Chechen force began yelling in Russian. Howard had a few words and phrases, enough to recognize a 'Who the hell are you?' query when he heard it.

'What is the name of their secret police force?' Howard asked Marcus, sotto voce.

'ZhalitKulk, sir.'

'Tell them that's who we are. Tell them we're on a secret mission. Tell them to get the hell away from here or we'll have their balls for breakfast.' Howard didn't think they'd buy it, but they'd have to think about it. What if it was the truth? Could they take the chance?

'Sir.' Marcus turned and loudly rattled off a fast string of Russian.

Howard kept his voice low, but loud enough for his troops to hear over the Huey's twin engines. 'Fall back into the transport by twos. Last out, first in.'

As the first pair of his troops climbed into the Huey, the Chechen commander yelled something, and his men took more precise aim with their weapons.

'I don't think they want us to leave,' Fernandez said.

Howard's belly was suddenly full of dry ice and liquid nitrogen. He nodded. But the longer they stayed here, the more dangerous it got. Somebody might get nervous, his finger might slip, and the first round that went off would trigger a fusillade from both sides.

Slowly and carefully, Howard triggered his com headset, opened the opchan to the second Huey. He hoped they weren't too far away to hear him on the portable. 'C2, this is Alpha Wolf.'

There was a moment of dead air.

'C2, respond.'

'Copy, Alpha, this is C2.'

Howard repressed the urge to sigh in relief. 'We need a distraction here. There's a big van with a flashing blue light about sixty meters north of our position next to Cl. I would appreciate it if you would approach from the north and have somebody lean out and put a couple of magazines of hardball into the roof of that vehicle.'

'Consider it a done deal, Alpha. We're coming in.'

'Give me an ETA.'

'Forty-five seconds, sir.'

They hadn't gone far, a thing for which he was extremely thankful at the moment.

'We are leaving, troops,' Howard said, loud enough for his force to hear. At this point, he didn't much care if the opposition heard him. 'On my command, by twos, as fast as you can.'