Nah. Too far. He had to jump.
“Hold my gun,” he told Rankin, sliding the shotgun off his shoulder. He took one last look with the night goggles, then took them off and worked them into his ruck, figuring — hoping, really — they’d be safer there.
“Shit,” said Rankin.
“Dude, you got a ledge there, you ain’t fallin’.”
“It’s three inches wide.”
“Suck it up.”
“Fuck you.”
Ferguson took his gun back. “When I get on the rocks and get the NOD back on, you can toss me your gear.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Well, jump with it if you want. And be quiet. The guard post isn’t that far away. If you curse when you land, do it quietly.”
“Shit.”
Ferguson shifted right, shifted again, got his left leg in place, and sprang to the rocks.
His belly caught the side, but he held on without slipping. He got up, unsteady but intact, then put his NOD back on. He waved at Rankin, waiting.
Rankin tossed the MP-5 to him. Ferg caught it with one hand, a stinking circus catch.
What a hot dog, the SF soldier thought as he eased himself out of his ruck. He waited until his head stopped spinning, then tossed it out to Ferguson, who used two hands this time.
“Your NOD,” said Ferguson in a loud whisper.
Rankin had already decided he was keeping it on. He shook his head, then waited as Ferguson began moving toward the edge of the rocks, positioning himself so he could grab Rankin if he fell short.
Rankin waited a second more, then jumped. Heavier than Ferguson and without the experience of midnight daredevil sessions in college, he came down short of his mark but still on the rocks, bowling Ferguson over as he fell.
“Serves you right,” he groaned, getting up.
“You got to lose weight, Skip.”
Conners watched them come down the rocks, picking their way down the right side of the ravine.
“You took your time,” he told Ferguson, as the CIA officer made it to the base of the hill.
“You’re still here? I thought the Chechens would have asked you inside for a little training.”
“There’s two motorcycles,” he told Ferguson. “I moved them. I figured they might come in handy.”
“Good thinking, Dad.”
“Guns hasn’t checked in, has he?” asked Conners.
“Would’ve been with you. We weren’t in line of sight coming down the hill. He’d only use the sat phone if there were a problem.”
“Unless he couldn’t.”
“You worry too much, Dad.” Ferguson laid out the terrain for the others, showing how the escape route was lined up. The crevice that opened below the mouth of the cave made an offset Z as it descended toward the woods where the bikes had been hidden; Conners guessed that there would be booby traps or mines to further narrow the route. Ferg doubted that — the route had to be secret and usable in haste, and mines would pose a danger to the escapees as well as be potentially detectable.
They moved back behind the rocks near where the bikes had been hidden and waited.
“You sure the Russians are going to come?” asked Rankin.
“If I blew up your car, wouldn’t you want to punch me out?” said Ferg.
“I want to punch you out anyway.”
Between his roundabout route and bum leg, it took four hours for Guns to make it to the ambush. By then the cold had seeped beneath Rankin’s skin, turning his bones into rods of ice. He worked back and forth in his spot near the mouth of the cave, the motion more to keep him awake than warm.
“Anybody else, I’d think you were doing some Buddhist meditation,” Ferguson said to him.
“Maybe I am,” said Rankin.
They showed Guns the layout and told him the plan. Once Kiro was out of the cave, they’d close off pursuit by dumping grenades in and detonating the charges Conners had set along the ravine. The explosives hadn’t been placed close enough to seal the mouth of the cave — that would have risked tipping off any guard inside — but Rankin pointed to a spot about fifty feet above the cave entrance and slightly to the left.
“After you put the grenades in and set off the charges, put another grenade on those rocks. That oughta start an avalanche.”
“And run like hell,” Ferguson added, eying the hill.
“All right,” said Guns, though he didn’t feel much like running. His ribs were pounding, and his ears were swollen; he thought he looked like Mickey Mouse. “You sure you can tell who Kiro is?” he asked Ferg.
Corrigan had given them a series of FBI sketches and one blurry photograph, along with some physical descriptions from Russian FSB files. Kiro had a scar on his cheek and stood only five-four, but it was a fair question.
“Shit yeah,” said Ferguson.
Rankin sniggered. “We oughta just kill ‘em all and be done with it.”
“We may,” said Ferguson.
Rankin moved back near the hide, taking Conners’s position. He had the grenade launcher, which was armed with a ponderously long charge that protruded from the mouth of the weapon like a rectangular lollipop. The tube contained a large Teflon net and a stun charge. The net would cover a twenty-foot-round area when it exploded; though the netting was strong, its effect was probably more disorienting than anything else. The charge that fired it was roughly the equivalent of a flash-bang grenade, generally not harmful unless it happened to land exactly in your face.
Which of course would be where he’d aim it.
Ferguson walked back and forth between the positions, his body racing with adrenaline. He had reloaded the shotgun with nonlethal shot and slung it over his shoulder with the submachine gun, both weapons ready. Conners took the safety position, deep in the backfield. He had a Minimi M249 machine gun with a two-hundred round belt — anyone who made it past the others wasn’t staying alive very long. While small for a machine gun, the weapon weighed fifteen pounds empty and without its scope, and having lugged it this far, Conners would just as soon use it.
The men used various ploys to stay awake, biting lips, rocking, thinking about how cold they were. Ferguson was mostly worried about Guns and kept checking on him, but the Marine had endured worse in boot camp, or at least was thoroughly convinced that he had. The memory of getting through that — along with the fear that he might let his friends down or, even worse, disgrace the Corps — was more than enough to keep him alert.
A little past five, they heard a helicopter in the distance. Each man stretched his arms and legs, then fell into position — Guns propping himself against a tree, Conners and Rankin on one knee, Ferg standing and watching. The sound grew, but then faded.
The hills remained silent for another half hour. This time the low drone came from trucks and tanks, a column moving along a road.
“Five of ‘em,” said Conners over the com set. “Two tanks at least. Trucks, personnel carriers.”
“What’d they have for breakfast?” asked Ferg.
Conners was still trying to think of a smart-alecky comeback when the heavy whomp of helicopter gunships began shaking the ground. They were flying in from the northwest, crossing from the team’s left, almost over their shoulders.
It was still dark, but with his night goggles Ferg watched the six smudges in double echelon roar toward the fortress. They were Ka-50s, single-seat attack birds powered by a pair of counterrotating rotors and armed with rockets and a monster cannon. They swung into an attack on the other side of the hill, launching rockets at the east and west sides of the encampment. One of the first rounds caught something flammable, and a series of secondary
