“Better flank me,” he said.
Guns trotted into the woods to parallel him. The tracks ran in a large semicircle to the east, back in the direction where the tunnel had been. A small clearing sat beyond a set of cement posts; a partially dismantled train car sat in the middle of them.
“And here we are,” said Massette loudly, arriving in the clearing. “
It looked as if the flat casks from the French processing operation had been stacked on the bottom and sides of the car; at roughly a foot thick, they could have been easily missed by a casual inspection. The rad meters registered only trace amounts of material, bits of contamination that had been picked up inadvertently at the original waste site and left on the car. The casks — assuming of course that they had been there — would have contained high-alpha-producing waste, highly dangerous, but only if the containment vessels were broken and the material pulverized.
“Put it in trucks here,” said Massette. “Or one truck. We should probably follow this road,” he told Guns. He pulled out his map.
“It’s not on the map,” said Guns.
“Setting this up must have taken quite a long time.”
“Yeah,” said Guns.
“The fact that they would then blow up the train and leave the remains, leave the bulldozer, eliminate the possibility of using it again — they’re ready to go.”
14
The Russian truck drove up the road at a steady speed, not racing but not plodding either. Conners had pulled their vehicle behind the only large hunk of remains and done his best to obscure any tracks leading off the roadway; he hunkered in the ruins with their prisoner, ready with the RPG. Ferguson, crouched in a ruined basement closer to the road, aimed his AK-47 at the truck, even as he willed it to continue on its way.
It did not.
Jabbing off the side, the vehicle came to a shaky halt. A soldier jumped down from the cab, rifle in hand, walking around warily to the back. A minute later the driver got out, stretching his legs and hoisting his own rifle from the cab.
He walked directly toward the ruins where Ferguson was hiding. Ferg slid back into the shadows, aiming his gun, then realized what the driver was up to. He did his best to hold his breath as the Russian’s urine splattered on the blackened rocks nearby. The other man came up, making a joke about watering Chechen ashes.
They finished and zipped up, joking loudly as they walked back toward the truck. The driver had a hip flask; as they stopped to share a gulp Ferg pushed his way up through the ruins, trying to avoid the area they’d just wet down.
“Halt,” he said loudly in Russian, not more than ten feet behind them as they drank. “Drop your weapons or you’re dead.”
He gave a quick burst of gunfire as he spoke. The driver, whose gun was hanging at his side, dropped it, but the other man swung the rifle off his shoulder and squared to fire.
“No,” said Ferg, but it was already too late. As his finger squeezed the trigger, he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye. He just managed to duck as the rocket shot past, missing the KAMAZ and igniting in the hillside. Dirt and rocks sprayed everywhere.
Ferg’s burst had killed the Russian before he could fire. The driver meanwhile flattened himself against the dirt.
Ferguson kicked both guns away and waited for Conners, who ran up with his AK-47.
“I can’t believe I missed,” said Conners.
“You have to compensate,” said Ferguson, mocking Conners’s earlier advice. But he was glad his companion hadn’t hit the truck, and even more so when he pulled open the plastic tarp covering the back. Two small chests at the side held a cache of AK-74s, automatic rifles chambered for 5.45 mm ammunition. There were also two PKs, 7.62 mm light machine guns, oldish but very dependable squad-level weapons, and an AGS-17, an odd-looking grenade launcher that the Russians liked because it could loft its wares into overhead hills. Besides the ammunition for the guns, there were a dozen jerry cans of diesel.
“What do you say we give them our truck and take theirs?” Ferg asked Conners.
“Sounds like a fair trade.”
“Yeah, just about.” Ferguson hopped up and examined the AGS-17. Remembering the two small grenades Ruby had presented him with, he dug into the ruck and retrieved one.
“What is that?” Conners asked.
Ferg handed it over.
“This grenade doesn’t go in this gun,” said Conners, eying the fat slug.
“Figures.”
“It’s a Russian
“Maybe it goes off, maybe it doesn’t,” laughed the SF trooper. “They don’t have the highest quality control, and this sucker looks corroded to boot.”
“Har-har.”
“It’s a VOG-25L or something,” said Conners, his voice more serious. “It’s kind of like the 40 mm grenade you shoot from a 203. Russian launcher is shorter. More propellant here, see?” Conners held it up. “Plus this sucker, the nose detonates, and it kicks up again after it lands. It throws shrapnel all over the place. Nasty.”
“I’ll attend the seminar later,” said Ferg, stuffing the small grenade into his pocket. He took the AGS-17 grenade launcher and carried it to a point on the slope where he could see the entire compound. He slapped on the round drum that contained the grenade cartridges, then swiveled it up and down, not entirely sure how the mechanism worked. Russian weapons in general were known for their simplicity of operation, but the boxy gun looked more like something a mad scientist had invented than a weapon. Finally, he settled behind the trigger and fired. The grenade whizzed out across the compound, landing just beyond their truck. It took two more shots before he got the hang of it and scored a direct hit.
Conners meanwhile finished trussing the Russian, leaving him near the road. He took a single swig of the vodka, then thoughtfully offered a swallow to the man before tossing it away.
Daruyev spit in the dirt at them as Conners led him past.
“That’s not nice,” said Conners, chuckling.
“I have been thinking about what you said before,” Daruyev said to Ferguson, as he helped him into the truck.
“Yeah?”
“There are three possible places where they might storehouse material to prepare a bomb,” said Daruyev. “I can take you to each one of them.”
“Tell us where they are first.”
The Chechen shook his head. “Then you won’t need me.”
“I don’t need you now.”
“If I lead you to them, and you find a bomb, you will need me to help you neutralize it,” said the Chechen.
In truth, he could count on getting all sorts of help to dismantle a bomb. “What do you get?” asked Ferguson, though he suspected he knew the answer.
“If I help you, will you let me go free?” added Daruyev.
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Take me to America then. Put me in prison there.”
“America?” said Conners.
