"Schafer, one target in the open on the left side of the street. Dark brown hair, black jacket, gray pants. Second target obscured by white van. Careful with that one."
"Roger. We're through the light and moving fast to your position," the radio crackled.
The car pulled even with the white van and Daniel spotted the second operative with his peripheral vision. He fought the urge to look.
"Stay low, guys. Almost there."
He counted six men near the entrance to 22 Bondegatan. The entrance consisted of a dark brown, windowless double door, surrounded by a salmon-colored facade. The building towered five stories above the cramped street and connected seamlessly with the other apartment structures lining the one-way concrete boulevard. One of the Spetznaz operatives stood to the right of the target door, in front of several weather-beaten bicycles, apparently keeping watch over the two operatives furtively working to breach the apartment. A second lookout stood on the other side of the door, glancing casually at their car as it approached.
Directly across the street, a red and white checkered awning covered two small tables occupied by locals. A woman dressed in a gray business suit emerged from the café and adjusted an oversized dark red bag hanging from her right shoulder. She glanced across the street and momentarily locked eyes with Daniel before turning left to walk up the street.
Time slowed to a crawl as the car pulled up to the space in front of the door. Another operative stood less than ten feet away on the curb, his head turned toward the apartment building. He had his left hand stuffed into the right side of his jacket and started to bring his head around to face the sound of the sedan. The Volvo stopped suddenly, jolting everyone forward.
Major Eristov sensed that something was off. He heard a car motor, which wasn't the first to pass since they emptied from the Passat sedan. It was something about Sergeant Greshnev. With the lock pick tool still in both hands, he turned his head to glance at Greshnev, who appeared unusually tense and focused. The sergeant's left hand drifted toward the PP2000 hidden under his jacket, and Greshnev considered turning to look at the car. His thought was stopped by an intense, sharp pain in his upper right back. Greshnev's sinister-looking submachine gun emerged from beneath the sergeant's jacket in a blur of hands and black steel. Shit!
Eristov pivoted his body and reached inside his jacket to grab his PP2000. Before the lock pick tool clattered to the ground behind him, his left hand had already reached the front grip of the submachine gun and started to pull it forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two bursts of machine-gun fire flash from the car. One of the bursts tore through him, arresting his turn and slamming him into the thick wooden door. He heard Greshnev's PP2000 shatter the morning silence, followed quickly by another loud staccato burst from somewhere down the street. With his head still cocked toward the street, he saw the inside of the car turned bright red as Russian bullets found targets. Oddly, he felt no pain.
Most of the Volvo's windows shattered simultaneously as Daniel's team fired extended bursts from their suppressed weapons, catching most of the Russian operatives by surprise. Daniel's first burst cut straight through the stomach of the operative standing on the curb, passing straight through to strike one of the men working on the door. Several bullets stitched across both of the men huddled in front of the entryway, as Daniel instinctively shifted the MP-7's reflex sight to the man standing to the left of the door and fired another burst, striking the man in the upper chest. The armor-piercing rounds punched through him a mere fraction of a second after the Russian put his own PP2000 into action against Daniel's team.
The Russian's hastily fired burst struck the car's rear door, easily penetrating the sedan's thin metal. Two rounds impacted with the ballistic plates inserted into Sergei's vest and one passed through his right leg, spraying the compartment with arterial blood. Simultaneously, a concentrated burst of fire from the Spetznaz operative standing in front of the bicycles struck the upper rear corner of the Volvo. The bullets effortlessly entered the car's passenger cabin and passed through Sergei's skull, turning most of its contents into a red aerosolized mist that instantly obscured the remaining intact windows. One round continued unhindered and shattered Farrington's driver side window.
Hot arterial blood pumped through the space between the headrest and seat, splashing Daniel's neck before he opened the door and charged through the space between two cars.
Leo's head slammed into the top of the driver's seat when Farrington hit the brakes, but he still managed to rise quickly and find his first target through the rear window of the Volvo. He fired a suppressed burst at a man leaning against the apartment wall about ten meters down the street, crumbling the car's safety glass into a thousand pieces and striking the Russian operative in the neck and head with several armor-piercing bullets. Through the Reflex sight, he saw the body instantly drop to the pavement, leaving the sight's bright green dot centered on a red-stained wall.
He swung the MP-7 inward along the apartment wall and started to acquire a second target, but was hit by a hot spray that covered his face and obscured his Reflex sight. Undeterred by the fact that his best friend's brains had just coated his face, he fired two extended bursts without the Reflex sight, relying on his practiced ability to aim instinctively down the barrel. He saw the shooter stumble backward, toppling over several bicycles.
He looked past Sergei's useless body and assessed that all of the targets in front of the apartment building were down. Farrington's MP-7 clattered and the front windshield turned opaque. Blood still pumped furiously from Sergei's leg wound, splashing the car's gray interior. A loud staccato burst echoed from the street, followed instantly by the hollow impact of bullets against the Volvo's metal shell. Time to move.
He opened the door halfway and slid out of the sedan, staying low. Farrington had made the same decision, and they both stepped onto the street at the same time. Leo charged along the rear side of the Volvo, but was stopped in his tracks by a well-aimed burst of 5.45mm projectiles from a shooter near the Russians’ white Mercedes van. Three of the four bullets struck the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert of Leo's tactical vest, protecting the vital organs of his chest from instant jellification. The fourth bullet hit a few millimeters above the hardened boron carbide plate and passed easily through the softer level IIIA material. The hardened steel core projectile shattered his right clavicle and exited through the top of his right arm. The near simultaneous impact of all four bullets dropped Leo to the pavement, which saved his life. Another burst of assault rifle fire peppered the door he had just opened.
Farrington slammed on the brakes and raised his MP-7, searching for one of the targets he had identified as the car approached the front of the apartment. He braced the MP-7 against the steering wheel and centered the Reflex sight’s green dot on a man running across the street about 50 meters up the road. He fired a short burst and the entire front windshield shattered without falling, effectively obscuring his view of the street. Through the small hole punctured by the tight burst of 4.6mm projectiles, he could see that his target had stopped in the middle of the street. Aiming through the tiny opening in the opaque, bluish white windshield, he fired a long burst at the stationary man, but couldn't see the results. Without warning, the inside of the car erupted in a warm spray that painted the windshield red and coated the dashboard with a thin pinkish-red film. He didn't need to turn his head around to figure out what had happened. He heard muffled bursts of fire from the remaining MP-7's and decided it was time to hit the street. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Daniel open the front passenger door.