it turned. Lowering the muzzle of his AT-4 ever so slightly, Ned yelled out, 'RANGE, ONE EIGHTY. FIRING,' then let fly with his rocket. Though it was not a catastrophic hit, Ned's rocket ended any desire by the startled BTR's crew and passengers to stay with their vehicle. They didn't even wait for the driver to bring the BTR to a complete stop before hatches and doors flew open.
Checking himself, Pape flipped the safety off of his weapon with his thumb and continued to wait until the Ukrainian infantry squad began to spill out before he opened fire. Using the range announced by Ned to sight his weapon, Pape opened with a killing burst, hitting one Ukrainian before he could completely emerge from the BTR's side door. The Ukrainian's forward momentum, assisted by the shoving of the man behind him, cleared the line of sight for Pape to fire on the next man coming out the door. The second Ukrainian never realized that his companion had been hit, a fate that he soon suffered himself as Pape squeezed off a second short burst.
From inside the BTR, a flame shot out of the opened door, followed by a muffled explosion. A secondary detonation, probably an anti-tank rocket stored inside the BTR just like the one that had stopped it, went off, ending the short anti-armor ambush.
Seeing no more targets, Pape eased up, noticing for the first time that the Russian major was staring at him. While holding his weapon steady, Pape twisted his head and looked at the Russian lying less than a meter away from him.
Ilvanich smiled at the American soldier. 'You did well. That was excellent shooting. Two five-round bursts, two men dead.'
Pape smiled. 'Piece of cake, Major. Piece of cake.'
Ilvanich continued to smile. 'Yes, I am sure it was.' These Americans, he thought, take this too casually. What will happen, he thought, when things begin to go against them. 'Now you need to prepare for a deliberate attack, dismounted this time, that will come up, oh, over there, to your right.'
Pape looked over to where the Russian major was pointing. 'How do you know that?'
Ilvanich smiled. 'Because, my friend, two months ago I was doing the same thing at a site like this. Those men out there may be Ukrainians, but they read the same books I do. There is a gully, three hundred meters over there, that leads almost up to the fence. It is mined near the fence, but the BTR will use it to close on us and dismount its troops.'
Not sure about the Russian next to him, Pape looked at the major for a few seconds, then grunted. 'Okay, you're the expert.' After which he shifted his weapon to the right.
Fifty meters below Ilvanich and Pape, another battle was being waged. In this one the Americans also held the upper hand, a fact that Biryukov could not ignore. The fight, for him and his small detachment in the assembly chamber, had been a disaster. Coming out of the smoke, the enemy had been among his positions before his men had gotten a shot off. At point-blank range the Americans had all but wiped out Biryukov's command. Only the quick thinking of one of his sergeants saved Biryukov from dying in that first rush with the rest of his men. Not that salvation was going to last long. Unable to move because of a wound that laid most of his side open, Biryukov sat with his back to the wall looking at the elevator doors that led back up to the assembly chamber. Only he, Sergeant Popel, who had dragged him into the elevator, and one other man made it to the lower storage chamber. Though the elevator was locked, Biryukov could hear the Americans working on the other side, preparing charges to force the elevator doors on their level. They had time, but not much. Once the American demolition team was finished, they would have to climb out of the elevator shaft before setting off their charges. After that everything would go fast. First, if they were smart, the Americans would drop grenades to clear the shaft and area by the door. Then the assault force would rappel down on ropes to finish Biryukov and his tiny command before they had recovered from the grenades. It was simply a matter of time before the Americans seized the weapons he was charged with guarding, unless he did something.
Looking down the long corridor to his right, Biryukov turned his mind away from the coming fight. Yes, he thought, it would be quick. Though some of the attackers would surely die this time, there was only so much that his two men could do. The Americans, Biryukov knew, had come too far to stop. They would gladly fill the elevator shaft with their dead in order to seize the warheads that sat in the chambers on either side of the long corridor. That the Russians had somehow gotten the naive Americans to do their dirty work didn't surprise Biryukov. His father had always told him that while the Americans acted like cowboys, they thought like boy scouts. Looking back at Popel, Biryukov coughed, spitting up small clots of blood. 'If they do not hurry, I fear I shall miss their grand entrance.'
The sergeant, his face betraying no emotion, nodded. 'It shall not be long, Captain. I believe that they are climbing back up the elevator shaft. Once the demolition party is cleared, they will set off the charge. Then…'
In the silence, the soldier crouching next to the elevator shaft looked at the sergeant, then at Biryukov. His young face was contorted with fear and apprehension. He, like Biryukov and the sergeant, knew they had no chance. Still he refused to believe it. In his youth he refused to believe that there was no way out.
Coughing, Biryukov looked down the corridor again, then back at the sergeant. 'Suppose, Sergeant, we decide not to cooperate with the enemy's plan?'
The young soldier piped up, 'You mean we should surrender?'
Biryukov shook his head. 'No. I doubt that they would be willing to take our surrender even if we were willing to offer it. After what happened up there, they have blood in their eyes.' Biryukov paused, glancing once more down the long corridor before he continued without looking back at Popel. It was quiet, terribly quiet, like a tomb. 'We must initiate the self-destruct sequence.'
Popel didn't answer at first. Looking back at him, Biryukov forced a smile. 'It is, Sergeant Popel, time to put your treasonable knowledge to use.' Biryukov took his bloody hand away from his side and stretched it out. 'As you can see, I cannot do it myself. I need your help, Sergeant.' A spasm of pain went through Biryukov's body. Grabbing his side again, Biryukov forced himself to stifle a moan. When he could speak, Biryukov pleaded. 'Please, Sergeant, hurry. We do not have much time. Do not fail me.'
At the other end of the elevator shaft, Captain Smithy leaned over the open shaft, yelling to the last of the engineers struggling up the ropes to get a move on. This was taking too long for Smithy. The whole operation was not going the way he had wanted it to, and it was starting to piss him off. The gunfire from outside, barely audible to most of the men in his company that were in the assembly chamber, only served to increase Smithy's anger. Turning to the platoon leader standing next to him, Smithy blurted, 'Why in the hell did those yahoos have to take the elevator down to where the warheads were stored? Geez, why couldn't they have used the other one? They really screwed this up.' Smithy looked down the shaft and mumbled again, 'They really screwed this up.'
The platoon leader, not knowing if his company commander expected an answer, merely shrugged. How had the Ukrainians' action screwed up the operation? As far as the platoon leader could see, everything was in hand. They had cleared the upper chamber at the loss of one dead and three lightly wounded men. The initial portion of the Ukrainian reaction force was taken out by the rest of the company without any problem. And in a few minutes, after the elevator doors at the far end of the elevator shaft had been blown open, all they had to do was dump a few CS tear-gas and smoke grenades down the shaft, slide down the ropes, and clean up any Ukrainians who were still down there. The young platoon leader looked down the elevator shaft, then over at his commander, now pacing back and forth a few feet away, wondering what possibly could be wrong.
The attack by the second BTR had caught everyone, except Ilvanich, by surprise. No one had heard its approach. Even the riflemen along the chainlink fence with night vision goggles failed to see the second part of the reaction force as it advanced up a gully to the right of the road. Only when a hail of 14.5mm rounds began to smack into the cinder block guard shack did the men of 1st Platoon go to ground and begin to search their assigned sectors in earnest.
'TO THE RIGHT. BTR WITH DISMOUNTED INFANTRY COMING UP ON OUR RIGHT.'
As if to underscore the warning, a hail of small-arms fire flew over Pape's head from the direction of the gully that Ilvanich had pointed out to him. Looking over to the Russian, Pape saw that Ilvanich had his assault rifle up and was preparing to fire. 'Son of a bitch! You were right!'
Ilvanich did not respond to Pape's comment. He only issued instructions to the surprised American. 'Remember, you are shooting downhill. Aim lower than you normally would, otherwise your rounds will go harmlessly over their heads.'
Turning back to his front, Pape prepared to fire. 'Yeah. Aim low. Got it.'
While Pape and Ilvanich were preparing to engage, First Lieutenant Zack climbed out of a rear window of the guard shack, which was still being chewed up by 14.5mm bullets from the BTR, and low-crawled over to the
