Yevgenii Kulcyanov grasped the fast-rope and slid down, hitting hard and then bounding to the back door of the club.
“Rig it,” he said, not even looking over his shoulder to make sure Bran was behind him.
“Got it,” the Keldara demo specialist said, slapping the charge on the heavy door. “Clear,” he yelled, sliding down the wall to the side and then triggering the kilo of Semtek.
The remainder of the Keldara entry team had paused out of the blast zone, hunkering down to take the blast on their armor. As soon as it went off, Yevgenii tossed a frag through the door, waited for it to detonate and then plunged into the smoke.
“Clear right!”
Padrek drifted through the dust from the destroyed main door and took up a position to the right of the door, sweeping around the mostly abandoned main club area. Abandoned by clientele, that is. There was heavy fire coming from the far side of the bar.
Padrek Ferani at 5’ 9’’ was shorter than the average Keldara and darker as well, with brown hair and eyes that had a slight epicanthic fold, probably the result of a Mongol warrior passing through the area. But his frame was compactly muscled from years of farm work and the training the Keldara took for the tests of Ondah. That muscle had been further honed by the training regime of the Western instructors, as had an already fast mind.
Choosing the militia teams had, in the end, come down to something like choosing teams for ball in school. To an extent, the instructors had made sure that certain skills were passed around, but the team leaders had final call on who was in “their” team. And they’d tended to choose like-minded individuals.
Oleg was a born warrior, a true Viking descendent who tended to feel that peace could best be served by superior firepower. When he saw an obstacle, his choice was to smash it down. Vil was more subtle, preferring deception and quick movement, the rapier to the broadsword.
Padrek was one of the best Keldara at mechanisms, one of the kids who had spent his whole life keeping the few bits of technology the Keldara posessed alive and kicking. He had the mind of an engineer, so when he saw a problem he tried to work it, to think “outside the box.” As he surveyed the destruction, he was automatically processing actions both near and far in terms of combat time. And he sure as hell wasn’t planning on a frontal assault.
Oleg would have tried to overwhelm with firepower. Vil would have tried a ruse.
Padrek tended to prefer technology.
One of the Keldara was down in the doorway and a blood trail denoted another that had been dragged out of the line of fire. The rest were hunkered down behind a barricade of tables, trading shots with the Albanians on the far side of the room. More of whom were pouring through a doorway that was just out of the Keldara’s line of fire.
“Tch, tch,” Padrek said, shaking his head. Team Padrek’s primary instructor had been McKenzie, the Scottish former SAS NCO, and some of his manner had rubbed off. “This simply won’t do, what? Krasa?”
“Go Padrek,” the intel specialist replied. She was hunkered down outside the building, waiting for the club level to be cleared.
“You’ve got the detonation codes that Vanner sent, yes?” Padrek asked, consulting a piece of paper. “Could you give me a hit on number six and… eight?”
Creata waited as the eight members of the side entry team slid to the ground then stepped to the door. She looked over her shoulder and wasn’t surprised to see the Kildar giving her a thumb’s up signal. She grinned at him, grabbed the fast-rope and slid into the alleyway.
As planned, she stepped to the far side from the door and huddled to the ground as Ivan and Mikhail squeezed her from either side, covering her from stray fire and random fragments.
“You don’t have to lean in that hard,” she muttered, barely able to breathe from the weight of the two. Oh, well, it was probably something like sex. Maybe some day she’d find out.
There was an explosion and then a series of shots, then Ivan stood up and yanked her to her feet.
“Stay between us, Mouse,” he growled, running hard for the door.
“Tango down right.” “Down left. Left clear.” “Hallway clear.” Another blast. “Door open. Descending.” “Check fire, hallway. Main entry team in place.” “Basement…”
Creata didn’t stop in time and bounced off of Ivan’s armor before being yanked to the ground by Ivan.
“What’s happening?” she asked. She had been instructed to keep her radio off unless she absolutely had to use it.
“Too many guards in the basement,” Mikhail muttered. “Secondary team going in.” As he told her there was a massive explosion from the level above.
“What was that?” Creata yelled.
“Padrek having fun,” Mihail replied, grinning.
“Up and at ’em!” Padrek shouted, standing up over the barricade and firing the MG-240 from the hip.
The detonation of the two IEDs the hooker had secreted in the staircase had blown the reinforcing guards out of the doorway like so much mangled meat. It had also seriously eroded the morale of the guards that had, successfully, bottled up the Keldara entry team. They stopped firing and turned to look at what had happened, giving Padrek the moment’s respite he’d needed. Now the Albanians were suppressed as his fire, and the fire of the two SAW gunners on the team, filled the area around the bar with lead.
“Grenades,” he yelled, continuing to snap out three- and five-round bursts, working back and forth along the top of the bar, sending the few remaining intact bottles up in an explosion of glass and liquor. “Now!”
As the grenades reached the end of their apogee he stopped firing and ducked; frags had no concept of who was friend or foe. There was a series of “cracks” and screams, then he was back on his feet.
“Follow me!”
Gregorii leapt over the black-clad body of a Keldara at the base of the stairs and took cover on the far side of the hallway as rounds cracked down the long gallery.
“Four, maybe more, on the south end,” he said. “Twenty meters down.”
“I’ll cover,” Yevgenii said, leaning around the corner of the stairs and spraying fire from his Squad Automatic Weapon down the length of the corridor.
Gregorii got down and low-crawled forward to the next doorway, reaching up and trying the door. Locked.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Reloading!” Yevgenii called as the fire died.
Gregorii pulled his SPR around and began sending three-round bursts down the hallway, trying to keep the defenders at the far end suppressed. An AK was stuck around the corner and the trigger yanked, filling the corridor with bullets, one of which hit him on the armor.
“I need more cover than this!” Gregorii sang out.
Suddenly more than just the SAW was firing down the hallway and the AK was quickly yanked back.
“Thank you,” he muttered, putting the barrel of the SPR against the lock and blowing it away with a couple of bursts. He pushed the door open with the barrel and then peeked around the corner. The room appeared to be clear so he slid through the door, tracking around for threats.
Well, not entirely clear. There was a girl huddled in one corner, chained to the wall. She looked as if she’d been beaten rather hard recently. And a nick on her leg was probably from a bouncer.
“Just stay there and be quiet,” he said in Russian, gesturing her down. He leaned out again, carefully, given the amount of lead being thrown around, and checked the doorway at the end. Close enough. He pulled out a fragmentation grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it as hard as he could down the corridor.