First Team [First Team 01] Read online

  “I’m fuckin’ fine.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Come on, boys; we got a long walk to catch up to Dad, or he’s going to have all the fun.”

  ~ * ~

  12

  IRKTAN, CHECHNYA

  After more than two hours in the woods, they were still a good mile Mr£W& and a half from the back of the fortress. With the sun starting to set, Ferguson decided they’d have to split up. He was worried that the rebels would decide to sneak out of the fortress as soon as it was dark.

  “Conners’ll just blast ‘em,” argued Rankin.

  “If he has to, that’s OK. But he also might get his ass handed to him,” said Ferg. “You help Guns come up as fast as you can.”

  “I can make it by myself,” said Guns. “Both of you guys go.”

  “I don’t know, Guns,” said Ferguson. “Go on.”

  “I don’t need no Marine Corps macho bullshit,” said Ferg. “I need you in one piece.”

  “Fuck yourself, I am.” “He can make it,” said Rankin.

  Ferguson debated with himself. If there was a firefight behind the fortress, Rankin would be extremely useful. On the other hand, Guns wasn’t likely to go too much faster with Rankin helping him.

  “You sure you can make it?” he said to the Marine. “Yeah, I can do it,” said Guns.

  “I’m counting on you. I got to keep these Army guys in line. One Marine, two Army—about right.”

  “You need five grunts for a jarhead,” said Guns, wincing through his smile.

  “Yeah, that’s about right,” said Ferg. “You use the radio if you get stuck. You got me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ~ * ~

  T

  hey had to stop after a mile and put on their night goggles. The quickest way to the ravine over the cave exit was across a sheer rock wall. It would be impossible in the dark—Ferguson had mapped a route below, which would have brought them almost opposite the vehicle hide—but if they got across it they’d be almost on top of the exit, in perfect position to control it. From there, one man could cover the other as he went across to the left down to the spot where Conners was waiting near the vehicle, which he’d already incapacitated.

  “You’re out of your mind,” said Rankin, looking at it through his goggles. “No way.”

  “Leave the pack if it’s too heavy,” said Ferg. “Come on. I’ve gone across rock quarries that were tougher.”

  “At night?”

  “Oh shit yeah,” said Ferguson, examining the wall. “There’s plenty of handholds, couple of ledges. Won’t be a problem.”

  “You’re crazy man. I’m not doing that.”

  “Your call,” said Ferguson, starting out.

  “Fuck,” said Rankin, snugging his ruck tighter and following.

  Ferg found a ledge about chest high and climbed up onto it. It was about eight inches wide, and he didn’t have to lean too much to keep his balance as he went. He stopped after a few feet to tighten the shotgun; the MP-5 was in its Velcro rig. There was a guard post about a hundred yards farther up the ridge to the left, but to see down here the lookout would have to crawl out and peer over the rocks, extremely unlikely as long as they were quiet.

  The ridge ended twenty feet out. A hundred and fifty yards of nearly sheer wall separated Ferguson from a pile of rocks that would be easy to scramble across. The drop was at least two hundred feet.

  Rankin really didn’t want to know how far down it was. He could feel the sweat swimming down his fingers. He watched Ferguson begin climbing the wall, working his way across. Fucker probably wants me to fall, Rankin thought to himself, pushing his fingers into a rock and kicking for something to put his foot into.

  Ferguson was about ten feet from the rocks when he ran out of places to put his hands and feet. At first he thought it was just because of the darkness and eye fatigue—the goggles tended to make his eyes blurry after a while—but gradually he realized it was a real problem. He climbed up a few feet, only to find his way barred in that direction as well. He stared and stared, trying to find a hold, and was still staring at it when Rankin finally reached him.

  “Now what?” whispered Rankin. He was breathing hard, probably hyperventilating.

  “I don’t know,” said Ferguson. “The rock’s so smooth I can’t find a hold anywhere. No cracks. Nothing.”

  “Well you better find one. I’m getting tired.”

  “We could turn around,” said Ferguson.

  “I’m not going back.”

  “Just wanted to give you the option. I’m going to push off and jump.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Better keep your voice down,” said Ferguson. He went back to studying the wall. If he were wearing climbing shoes, he might take a risk on a nub just out of his reach; the face sloped ever so slightly, and he thought—knew—he could get his finger there before his balance got too unwieldy.

  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.”

  ~ * ~

  C

  onners 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 detec
table.

  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.”

  ~ * ~

  B

  etween 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 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 had come out first started shouting. A moment later someone in the cave began firing an automatic rifle toward Rankin. Guns fired the grenade into the cave, then tripped the charges. As the hillside shook, he put a grenade into the pile of rocks Rankin had pointed out. Dust and dirt flew everywhere. He launched another, then lost his balance as the rocks clattered down the hill in a roar.

  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 fel
l 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.