Not a man. A boy.
Zubkhov kneeled and looked at him closely. Somewhere between 16 and 20 was all he could guess. By the look of his face, he was Inuit too. No wonder he had been able to move around the country like he owned it. Zubkhov looked up at the Winchester standing against the wall, with its big digital hunting scope. Blunderbuss like that could take the head off a polar bear. Zubkhov figured he had been very lucky indeed. He thought he’d been hunting this boy and his radio, and the whole time, he was the one who had been hunted.
He reached down and closed the boy’s eyes. He had fought well. Zubkhov felt like he should say something, so he tried to imagine what the Captain would say. Suddenly it came to him — a Dostoyevsky quote of course. “God gives us moments of perfect peace,” he told the boy. “In such moments, we love, and we are loved.”
Rodriguez looked at the Russian general with a wry smile, “You forget I’ve still got a Fantom overhead,” she said, jerking her thumb at O’Hare who had just flipped up her virtual-reality visor. “And a pilot who is very keen to give it a new target, correct O’Hare?”
“Bloody oath ma’am,” the aviator said.
“And you forget,” Bondarev countered, “That I have six fighters inbound which will make very short work of your Fantom.”
“Before I destroy the chopper on top of this rock and any Spetsnaz dumb enough to be near it?” Bunny asked, pulling down her visor again and turning away. “I’ll lock up the target ma’am, you just say the word.”
“Your men are seconds away from death General,” Rodriguez said. “So let’s discuss your surrender, shall we?”
“I am Air Force, not Spetsnaz,” the Russian said, his voice cold and even. “They are not my men.”
Dave heard the shots behind him and skidded to a halt at the edge of the ruined cantonment. Seriously? That damn Russian was still alive? Or maybe there were more. He swapped his rifle from his left shoulder to his right. Ah hell.
It took him twenty minutes to get back to the water tower and as he approached, he crouched low, using the rubble of the blasted buildings for cover, and found a spot where he had a good view of the water tower on its shattered base. Sure enough, he saw a Russian soldier climbing up the ladder to the platform on which the water tank stood. Scanning the ground below, he couldn’t see any others. It appeared to be just the one.
Dave could see blood on the guy’s uniform and he was holding his right arm in against his chest, climbing with his left arm on the rungs, dragging one leg up the ladder behind him. It must be the same damn guy. He pulled his rifle from his shoulder and settled it on the wood and bent iron in front of him. He was maybe fifty yards away. But Dave just had iron sights on his rifle, no scope. And he was no marksman. He tried to hold the sight at the end of the barrel steady on the back of the Russian soldier, but he was panting, his heart was pounding, and it kept moving around. That Russian was damn near unkillable. Dave had a feeling if he missed, he’d have given himself away for nothing and the guy would come for him.
Damn damn damn!
He slumped back down behind cover feeling useless. The Russian was shouting something, but at least he wasn’t shooting into the tank. Dave kept an eye on him through a crack in the debris, thought about a hundred times about taking a shot at him, even just to try to lure him away, but did nothing.
Then the Russian got to the platform, adjusted the pistol in his belt and started climbing the ladder up the side of the tank itself.
He was going for Perri. Now! Now Dave had to do something! He sighted on the Russian’s back between his shoulder blades, took a deep breath. The Russian moved up the ladder… and Dave’s shot was blocked by an overhanging sheet of steel. Oh come on. He looked around. He’d have to move around the back of the building beside him, see if he could get a shot from the other side. Quickly he scuttled through the rubble, couldn’t get a line of sight on the tower, found his way blocked by a tumbled wall, backed out again and went around further, down the side of two collapsed huts, kicking up carbon and soot and ice. There! He could see the top of the tower now. See the Russian soldier climbing up to the manhole cover. He sighted down the barrel.
Two shots rang out as the Russian fired down into tank and Dave ducked back down.
He was shaking. He felt like crying. The guy wasn’t even shooting at him, he was shooting down into the tank, at Perri. Sticking his head up again, he saw the Russian lower himself into the tank.
OK, Perri is dead. You screwed up and now he’s dead.
No. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe you can still do something.
Do something you cowardly piece of shit!
Dave crouched and ran over to the ladder. He was wearing a pair of basketball shoes he’d lifted from a sports store. Their soft rubber soles were silent on the metal rungs of the ladder as he climbed.
He reached the top of the ladder, under the manhole. It was cold. The wind was blowing hard. He reached the top of the ladder, pulled his rifle off his shoulder and as quietly as he could, worked the bolt. OK Dave, this is it. Foot on the next rung, lift yourself up, aim and fire. You can do it.
He counted to three then stood, bringing the rifle up and aiming straight down the barrel. The Russian soldier was crouched beside Perri and he looked up in surprise at the sound of Dave’s rifle barrel on the metal rim of the manhole. He started to lift his pistol, but Dave fired first and the bullet caught the guy in the middle of his chest and threw him back against the wall of the water tank, his pistol flying from his outstretched arm.
“I have the copter on the Rock locked ma’am, in range in two minutes,” O’Hare said. “Russian fighters are still five minutes out. Orders?”
Rodriguez had picked up her rifle again and pointed it menacingly at the Russian officer, “Decision time.”
He stared at her, ice blue eyes unwavering. A minute went past.
“Beginning strafing run,” O’Hare cautioned. “Guns hot and set for autofire.”
A bead of sweat appeared above the Russian’s brow. “Abort!” he said. “I’ll guarantee you safe passage out of here.”
“Abort Lieutenant!” Rodriguez called. “Head for the deck, evade and retire.”
“Roger that ma’am,” Bunny said, tapping at her keyboard. “Ivan never got a lock on me anyway. Going ninja.”
Rodriguez lowered her gun, but kept her gaze fixed on the VVS officer, “She can call that Fantom back anytime,” she warned him. “So what’s your best offer?”
“I’ll tell the troops above to return to base,” he said. “My other patrols have already been recalled and I’ll stand down the fighters overhead. If you let me depart with my men, I’ll guarantee there will be no more attacks on this base.”
“Oh, now they’re your men?” O’Hare said, pulling off her helmet.
“Thank you Lieutenant,” Rodriguez snapped. She gestured with her rifle toward the chute, “Your exit is that way General.”
Devlin McCarthy’s office was chaos defined. There was an ugly mob at the gates of the Embassy compound, waving placards, throwing rocks and the occasional Molotov cocktail, not a Russian police officer in sight and the head of her Marine security detail was down there, asking her for permission to fire warning shots over the heads of the crowd.
She had three technicians trying to pull a built-in cabinet away from a wall to get at the wiring they needed to try to patch her into a new secure satellite uplink so that she could re-establish communications with Washington after someone, probably Russian cyber-intelligence services, cut all landlines and fiber in and out of the compound and jammed their usual satellite signal.