explosions began shaking the ground.
“Be ready,” said Ferg.
The onslaught moved to the front door of the fortress, rockets and cannons blasting the rocks and caves that looked down in the direction of the town. As one of the helicopters started away, a shrill zip sounded from the other side of the hill; a shoulder-launched missile veered upward and caught it on the side. Its fellows moved in for revenge, and at roughly the same time the tanks began to pound the caves, firing point-blank into the mountain.
“Be ready,” said Ferg again.
But nothing happened on their side of the fort. An hour after the attack had begun, the gunfire began to ease off. It was impossible to know what was going on from where they were, but it seemed unlikely that the Russians had made much of a dent in the rocks. A half hour later, two jets appeared; one of their bombs struck near the top of the hill over the cave, sending dirt far enough to dust Guns’s face.
“Fucking bastards. We’re going to have to go in there and get him ourselves,” said Rankin.
Ferguson’s real fear was that the Russians would try flanking the cave network and stumble across the Americans. Van Buren had raised the possibility earlier, pointing out that he didn’t have a large enough force to protect the flanks, but had reluctantly agreed when Ferg said bringing more men in — and waiting the day or two it would take to do so — presented other problems. It had been Ferguson’s call in the end, and he’d opted for surprise and quickness.
“Movement,” said Guns.
Everybody pushed forward a half step, weapons ready.
“Two, three men. First has a gun, the third,” said Guns.
“Guy in the middle,” said Rankin, who could see them from about twenty yards. “He’s short.”
“No, they’re all scouts,” said Ferg. “Hold on.”
“Going for the hide,” said Rankin.
“Hang tight.”
“Something else,” said Guns. “More people in the cave.”
“I got these three guys covered,” said Rankin.
Two more men came from the entrance to the cave. One was very much shorter than the other, stooped a little.
“The midget in the second group,” said Ferg. “Rankin?”
“Yup.” He shifted to his left — he didn’t have a shot on the target group, and the first trio was almost at the hide.
“Guns, get the grenade ready,” said Ferguson, seeing the two men now below them.
One of the trio that
Rankin still couldn’t see the target pair. He dashed down the hill toward the crevice, trying to get close enough to fire the net grenade. Bullets ricocheted all around him, the air humming with automatic weapons fire. Losing his balance, he slid down, falling on a direct line to the mouth of the cave, which was obscured behind a cloud of dust and rocks. He steadied the launcher but couldn’t find a target.
Ferguson pushed his submachine gun up and emptied the clip into the three figures who had come out first. By the time the last of the three men fell to the ground, rocks were sliding down the hillside.
Rankin cursed into the com set — he couldn’t find Kiro.
Ferguson pulled up the Remington, realizing that the terrorist had somehow managed to get beyond Rankin, possibly by climbing up the embankment. As he started to move toward the shallow ravine, he lost his footing. The slide saved him — one of the Chechen guerrillas had popped up on the slope directly across from him and begun firing. Ferguson scraped his fingers to hell as he fired back, the rubber slug slapping his target with a thud.
Ferg jumped to his feet and fired twice more, crazy with adrenaline now. He took a few hard shots to his chest before he had a target; he saw legs and fired the shotgun point-blank at the man’s face. His target howled and fell down. Ferg reached to grab him, then saw the other man climbing the rocks at his left to get away. He raised his gun and fired but either missed or didn’t do enough damage to stop him. Ferg fired again, then started after him, running and shooting until his gun was empty. He threw down the weapon and kept going, closing the distance to five yards before the man whirled.
He had a pistol in his hand. Part of Ferg’s brain saw the weapon and tried to tell his body to duck away; the rest missed it entirely. One of the bullets landed hard against the top of his body armor, but Ferg didn’t feel it — he’d already launched himself into the man’s midsection, tackling him against the stones. His right hand fished for the man’s neck and found a knife blade instead. Ferguson swung around, pinning his opponent and smacking his head back at the same time.
There was a flash, and Ferguson felt his head slammed to the side. Rankin had caught up and nailed them both with the net.
Ferguson, his back caught in the netting, saw the shadow of his assailant in front of him. He punched at it; the knife clattered away, and the Chechen, already stunned by the flash-bang, fell senseless. Ferguson stood up, pushing against the Teflon material of the net.
“Looks like you caught dinner,” he said to Rankin, who had his Uzi practically in Ferg’s face.
“This better be him.”
“There was one back on the lip of the ravine,” said Ferguson.
“I got him,” said Guns. He’d had to put a burst from the MP-5 into the man’s head when the bastard reached for his gun.
Conners and Rankin helped Ferguson out of the netting, then pulled the other man out and trussed him with handcuffs that looked like twists for Hefty garbage bags.
“Kiro,” said Conners, shining a flashlight in his face. “Yeah, that’s the bastard.”
“Take his picture so we can upload it to Corrigan and make sure,” said Ferg, handing the small digital camera to Rankin. As he ran back and grabbed his shotgun, something exploded at the top of the hill; Ferguson heard the heavy thump of the helicopters and started shouting to the others.
“Go, let’s go! Go!” he repeated, over and over.
Conners carried the Chechen over his back like a sack of potatoes. He started to slide him onto the seat of one of the bikes behind Guns, but Ferg stopped him. The CIA officer jabbed two syringes of Demerol into the terrorist’s rear, counting on the synthetic narcotic to keep him dazed for a while. Then he pushed him onto the bike, holding it while Conners got on at the rear. It was a tight squeeze, but it beat walking.
The helicopters were taking turns pounding the front of the fort and circling nearby. There was a chance they would see the bikes as they headed into the forest, but once they were in the trees, the choppers would have a hard time pursuing them.
“Do it,” said Ferguson over the com set.
Guns stalled the bike, then kicked three times before it started again. This time they jerked forward, nearly falling over but finally gaining their balance.
Something exploded behind them. Conners heard the roar of the helicopter and leaned his head into his prisoner’s shoulder, waiting for the cannon shells to tear them apart. They were nearly a mile away before he realized they were going to make it.
13
The prisoner’s moans weren’t enough to match his voiceprints, but Ferg decided they’d keep the bastard incapacitated with the Demerol rather than trying to get him to say something coherent over the sat phone. The visual image was a match at least, and as far as he was concerned, that was good enough. According to Corrigan,
