First Team [First Team 01] Read online

  “Fuckin’ officer material,” said Rankin, unleashing his worst slur as he stopped the truck.

  ~ * ~

  W

  hy are you interested in the Chechen?”

  Guns gave the man in the yellow jacket a quizzical look. It wasn’t difficult—he had no clue what the SOB was talking about.

  The man frowned. He’d told Guns that his name was Sergiv Kruknokov, that he was Russian, attached to the Federal Security Service or FSB, and that he had no jurisdiction here.

  Then he urged him to cooperate.

  Guns stuck to the story about being Belgian and working for an Italian waste company. He even rattled off a few words in Italian.

  “The police won’t torture you,” said Sergiv. “But they will complicate your plans, whatever they are. Should we call your embassy?”

  Guns didn’t know whether there was a Belgian embassy in Kyrgyzstan or not, so he shrugged and again insisted that he was who he said he was.

  The Russian shook his head, took a cigarette from his pocket, and left him in the basement room alone. Guns sat back in the chair, looking at the walls. Any second, he figured, Ferguson and the others would come in guns blazing and rescue him.

  It figures, he thought to himself. There’s finally going to be a little action, and I’m not in on it.

  ~ * ~

  F

  erguson walked up the steps, his weave just this side of sober. He reached for the door handle and pressed it open, pulling it open and starting inside.

  He took about half a step before he found his way blocked by two rather large soldiers.

  “ Vinavat,” he said in Russian, starting to apologize. “I need to use the can.”

  The soldier pushed him back. “Not here, asshole.”

  “Where’s Misha?”

  “Get the hell out,” insisted the soldier, and the door was slammed shut.

  “You were lucky, Ferg,” said Conners, coming up behind him.

  “What are you doing out of the truck?” asked Ferguson.

  “I figured you were up to something stupid.”

  “Just looking for a place to pee.”

  “You like to push it to the edge, don’t you?”

  “Always,” said Ferguson.

  ~ * ~

  R

  ankin was getting antsy in the truck. He had the Uzi in his lap, trying to look nonchalant but so tense that when Conners pulled open the passenger-side door he nearly blasted him.

  “What’s the story?” he asked.

  “They don’t have any bathrooms,” said Ferg, climbing in behind Conners. “Bad sign.”

  He pulled the door shut. “Let’s go someplace and get something to eat, take a breather.”

  “A breather?” Rankin nearly slammed the machine gun against the dashboard. “Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”

  “They have soldiers inside. We have to get the layout before we can go in.”

  “Fuck that,” said Rankin.

  Ferg leaned across Conners to look at the SF sergeant. “When you’d get to be such an asshole, Rankin?”

  “I’m not an asshole. I don’t want my guy getting killed.”

  “Makes two of us,” said Ferg.

  “Three,” said Conners. He hadn’t talked to Corrigan yet; he took out his sat phone to do so.

  “See if Corrigan can get us a map of the place from the library,” Ferguson told him.

  The CIA had an extensive database stocked with information about foreign buildings, kept for just such emergencies.

  “We’ll see what the bugs tell us, what else is going on. We’ll get him,” Ferguson told Rankin.

  “When?”

  “Sooner or later, Skippy.”

  “Don’t fuckin’ call me Skippy.”

  “Then don’t be such an asshole.”

  “Hey, Ferg, Corrigan wants to talk to you,” said Conners, handing him his phone. “They already have information from the phone tap. They’re charging Guns with Sheremetev’s murder.”

  ~ * ~

  6

  KVRGYZSTAN, MIDNIGHT THE SAME DAY

  Their rules of engagement dictated a nonlethal takedown, which made the whole thing much more dangerous and a bigger pain in the ass than it would have been.

  Not that it wouldn’t have been a big pain in the ass anyway.

  While Rankin set some M118 C4 block charges at the front of the building, Ferg and Conklin put their knives to the rubber of all the vehicles in the area, preventing anyone from following them when they were done.

  From what they could tell with their infrared sensors, there were no more than six men in the building, not counting Guns, who was being kept in one of the basement rooms along the west side. Two and sometimes three guards worked the hallway; another sat in a guardroom near the stairs. The others were up on the first floor, which only connected to the basement from the front stairwell.

  Ferg crouched on his haunches, checking his watch. In his hand was a Mossburg twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with solid lead shot, its sole purpose to blow out the hinges on the door. As soon as the door was gone, he’d reach down and grab his MP-5—his was the only lethal assault weapon on the team, a necessary backup in case things somehow got out of hand. He also had an M79 grenade launcher loaded with a special canister of tear gas to cover their exit, as well as a sawed-off Remington loaded with M1012 twelve-gauge nonlethal point target cartridges for any odd contingencies.

  Conners and Rankin had Jackhammers—combat shotguns that contained ten-round cylinders or “cassettes” loaded with rubber-bullet cartridges. The twelve-gauge cartridges contained plastic-wrapped rubber cylinders that would bruise and perhaps break bones, but were not likely to kill the guards. Rankin’s gun was slung over his shoulder; in his right hand he had an M79 grenade launcher, loaded with an M1029 40 mm crowd dispersal round. Though designed to disperse a crowd, the forty-eight cartridges in the launcher would take down anyone within thirty meters. Conners also had a flash-bang—officially, an M84 stun grenade, which they would pop in as soon as the door came off to disorient the guard or guards in the hall.

  All three men were wearing respirator masks with NODs; the charges would take out the electricity and lights, along with the telephone. Conners and Rankin had AN/PVS-14s, lightweight monocles that were preferred by most SF troops because of their weight and the ease of switching over to regular light. (Unlike the older AN/PVS-7, only one was strapped into the device.) Ferguson had a pair of Air-Force-issue Panoramic Night-Vision goggles, which gave him a hundred-degree field of vision. The wide angle would be more useful in the alley and leading the way out. The gear was somewhat bulkier than the others’. They were also wearing lightweight Kevlar vests.

  “Ready, boys?” asked Ferg over the com system, staring at his watch.

  “None of us are boys, Ferg,” said Rankin.

  “Girls, excuse me. Sixty seconds.”

  The charge at the front right side of the building—activated by a timer—blew about five seconds sooner than they’d planned. Ferg stepped up and took out the door hinges; as he pulled it away Conners pitched the flash-bang. A second later Rankin leapt into the hallway and unleashed the M1029.

  There had been three men the hall; all were taken down by the exploding canister of rubber balls. Rankin, breathing heavily in his respirator, kicked their weapons away, moving down the hall, expecting others to burst in at any second. He pulled the CS grenade off his vest; as soon as he was close enough to get an angle on the guardroom, he tossed it inside.

  Conners meanwhile was trussing the Russian guards with plastic hand restraints while Ferg pounded on the doors, yelling for Young with the aid of a loudspeaker device that fit inside his hood. He heard something at the second door, shouted at the Marine to stand clear, then brought up his submachine gun and fired out the lock. It took two kicks to get the door open. Ferg waited half a beat, then threw himself across the frame, sweeping his gun around.

  The room was empty.

  At the far end
of the hallway in the guardroom, Rankin pumped a shell into a coughing, writhing figure on the floor in front of the bunk beds, then pulled the door to the room closed, sealing in the incapacitating gas. As he jumped back outside, something clattered down the steps at the front of the building.

  Rankin hit the first man down square in the stomach, bowling him over with a shell. Bullets ricocheted down the stairwell—real bullets, which sent chips of masonry from the walls splattering into Rankin’s bulletproof vest.

  “Let’s move it,” he yelled into his mike. “Get that fuckin’ Marine the hell out of bed and let’s go.”

  Ferg went to the next door in the hallway, shot it open, and leapt inside. Through his viewer he saw someone coughing on the floor. He grabbed at the man’s arm, pulling him outside.

  “Guns?” he asked. The man was wearing different clothes—military-style khakis—but he was the right size and shape, and he didn’t have a weapon or a belt. “Guns?”

  The man coughed in reply. Ferg had to stare a moment at his profile to make sure it was his man, then began dragging him backward just as a fresh burst of automatic fire ripped down the stairwell at the front of the hall.

  “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” said Rankin. He waited for the gunfire to stop— whoever was firing had burned the whole clip—and tossed another tear gas grenade up the stairwell. His ears felt like they’d been hit with large rocks.

  This would have been a hell of a lot easier if we could just kill the bastards, Rankin thought to himself.

  One of the guards on the ground near him started to move. Rankin cursed and threw himself across the hall, kicking the bastard in the head. A fresh round of bullets stuttered down the stairwell.

  “Ferg? Conners? What the fuck?” he yelled.

  “Yeah, I got him,” said Ferg. He left Conners to help Guns out and ran to the exit to make sure they were clear. “Time to go, boys.”

  “We ain’t fuckin’ boys,” said Rankin. As soon as the rounds from above stopped, he leaned the Jackhammer around the corner and leaned on the trigger, sending three rounds of the rubber balls ricocheting upward. Then he began retreating backward.

  Ferguson slammed his canister of tear gas down the hall, but it didn’t explode properly. Cursing, he grabbed a smoke grenade from his pocket and thumbed away the tape he’d applied to keep them from accidentally going off. Smoke from the cartridge began whispering out as Conners emerged from the building. When Rankin didn’t appear immediately behind him, Ferg put his hand on Conners’s side and pushed him toward the alley. Rankin was about ten feet from the exit. A shadow moved at the far end.

  “Duck,” said Ferguson. He’d grabbed the Remington, and now he pumped it twice, the shells and shadow disappearing in the smoky interior. An AK-47 barked; Ferg fired two more shots and started to run. As he cleared the alley he tripped the two small M5 MCCM bangers set near the doorway—pseudoclaymore mines, they unleashed a hail of plastic balls with a good loud boom and fierce flash, stalling any pursuit.

  Firing the Remington conjured a bit of unwelcome nostalgia—he was nine, learning to shoot clay pigeons with his father at a range in Connecticut. Ferg pushed the memory away from his mind, but it was impossible to banish it from his hands, which caressed the stock even as he ran for the Honda, which they’d parked two blocks away. By the time he reached it, he’d pulled off his gas mask and night goggles. They weren’t being followed, at least not as far as he could tell, and the charge that had taken down the electric lines seemed also to have knocked out power to that part of the city.

  “Blow the truck,” he said as he pulled open the rear door. “Hit it, Rankin.”

  The truck was in a lot near the building, back two blocks away. They couldn’t hear the explosion.

  “Did it go?” Ferg asked, as Conners slapped the car into gear.

  “It went,” said Rankin.

  “You sure?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Ferg turned and looked at Guns for the first time. He had his face in a wet towel and the window rolled down.

  “Hey, you all right, Guns?”

  The Marine coughed and shook his head in a way that seemed to mean yes.

  “Turn left,” Ferguson told Conners.

  “Where the hell are we going?” demanded Rankin.

  “We have to make sure the truck blew,” Ferg told him.

  “I set the fuckin’ charge,” insisted Rankin.

  “Don’t take it personally.”

  “Screw you, don’t take it personally. You didn’t want a big goddamn explosion, right? So now you think I screwed up.”

  Ferguson had the shotgun between his legs, the barrel pointed downward into the floorboards. He caught another whiff of nostalgia—his father instructing him on gun safety. “Keep the gun cracked in the car,” was the way he always put it.

  His first shotgun, a real grown-up gun. Not a toy, said his father.

  “Something’s burning,” said Conners, pointing to the red glow in the distance. It was beyond the ministry building they’d hit, about where the truck had been.

  “Good,” said Ferg. “Hit the road.”

  “This all would have been easier if we could’ve just killed the bastards,” said Rankin.

  “Would’ve been easier with a whole A team,” offered Conners.

  “Hey, next time we’ll call Delta,” said Ferg. “They would’ve done it with bare hands and sticks.”

  Conners laughed, but Rankin, still angry, said nothing. In his opinion, Ferg had made the takedown too risky by insisting they not use lethal force. The CIA officer had the authority to override that directive if the situation warranted.

  In the back of the car, Guns’s eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his skull. His throat felt as if it were made of rug that a dog had used to sleep on. His nose was stuffed with oily rags. The towel Conners had given him wasn’t helping his eyes any; more likely it was rubbing the irritant into them.

  “You used fucking tear gas?” he said finally.

  “You’re welcome, Jarhead,” said Rankin up front.

  Ferguson reached to the floor and brought up a squeeze bottle. “Irrigate ‘em. I’m sorry about the gas.”

  The car veered hard left, then settled back onto the roadway. Conners had lost the pavement in the dark. They’d mapped out a route to the main highway over dirt roads, but it had looked a hell of a lot easier in the daylight.

  “Rankin, I need you to get out the map,” Conners said.

  “Yeah, I thought so,” said Rankin, reaching for it.

  Guns recounted what had happened, starting with the man with the yellow sports coat.

  “Some sort of Russian,” he told Ferguson. “FSB.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Nothing really. Asked if I’d cooperate. When I played dumb, he split.”

  “No other questions?”

  “Asked me about some Chechen.”

  “Which Chechen?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. Some sort of guerrilla. Muslim, maybe.”

  “If I get Corrigan to say a bunch of names to you, you think you could pick it out?”

  “ ‘Kiro,’ he said.”

  “Kiro. We can check that,” said Ferg. “What else did they ask?”

  Guns pushed his eyes into the towel, re-creating the interrogation. There had only been one with an FSB man. The others were with a local inspector, who asked over and over why he had killed Sheremetev.

  “What’d you say?” asked Ferg.

  “I said I didn’t.”

  “That’s all they asked?” said Ferg.

  “That’s it.”

  “Where’d you get the duds?”

  Guns laughed, then told him about the examination in front of the doctor and his nurse.

  “Fuckin’ guy checked me over good. I’m standing there thinking I want to pork his nurse—Mr. Young starts coming to attention, I swear—and he does a hernia check.

  “Shit. Stop the fuckin’ car,” said Fergus
on. “Shit.”

  “Huh?” asked Conners.

  “Pull off the road.”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  As the car skidded to a stop, Ferg threw open the door. He reached back and pulled Guns out, dragging him around the back of the car to the side of the road. A row of darkened buildings sat a few feet away.