“Of course,” Mike replied, just as calmly. “I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“Oleg,” Juris called, tracking a moving figure and then stroking his trigger. The figure on the opposite roof fell, but two more dove past him and began peppering the window he’d shot through with fire. “We’ve got tangoes on the roof opposite. I have to pull out.”
“I think we pissed these guys off,” Jitka muttered over the radio.
“Their home turf,” Oleg replied, scanning the street, then consulting his map. “They’re very territorial are the Albanian clans. This is an affront to their honor. They’ll keep coming, like ants to a picnic, until we’ve killed them all or the picnic’s departed.”
“Then I suggest we fold our napkins and go,. Juris chuckled. “Could I get some cover on that?”
“Roger,” Oleg said. “Dutri’s street team, pull back by sections. Section one, move. All teams, fall back on the Club. Kildar, we are withdrawing by sections at this time. Request cover fire in and around the club.”
“Oleg, this is Kildar,” Mike whispered. “Everyone’s with you. I’ll get back to you on cover.”
“Roger, Kildar,” Oleg said as there was a scream in the background.
“Vanner,” Mike said. “Who’s out on the interdict mission and what’s the status?”
“The area’s rigged,” Vanner said. “They’re pulling back.”
“Get two of the Allouettes to them,” Mike said. “Have them provide cover fire for the withdrawal to the club. Begin moving all personnel to the evac point on the roof.”
“Will do,” Vanner replied.
“Die you Albanian motherfuckers,” Ionis muttered, stroking the trigger of his MG-240.
He’d thought flying in on the Allouettes had been scary. But that had worked out perfectly. Now, though, he and Stephan were under heavy fire, covering the retreat of one of Oleg’s teams.
“Keep the ammo coming, brother,” he muttered as Stephan clicked another hundred-round box into the linked belt that was feeding the gun.
“Keep firing, brother,” Stephan replied, grinning, just as there was a whistling sound.
Ionis caught a brief glimpse of the RPG in the air before it impacted on the wall above him.
Oleg dashed across the street, ignoring the hail of small arms fire, and scooped up the MG-240.
“Dmitri! Sveryan! Grab Ionis and Stephan and get them under cover,” the team leader roared, popping up over the stairway and hosing the far side of the street, holding the machine gun off-hand like a giant rifle. There was return fire, though, from every window it seemed and from the rooftop. He felt a round punch him in the armor and then another in the left leg. He ignored them and kept firing, both suppressing the fire from the far side of the street and drawing it so the team could withdraw. “Vagis! Juris! Somebody feed me!”
“Kildar, this is Sawn. We’ve withdrawn on Nevsk and Agayev. I’m shifting some forces over to Dutris, though. Oleg and his team are pinned there.”
“Got it,” Mike said, quietly. “I may have some support on the way. Get everyone withdrawn as fast as possible. Mouse is almost done. I need at least a fire team here in the building to make sure we get to the withdrawal point.”
“Will do,” Sawn said. “See you in Valhalla.”
“Got it,” Creata said, leaning back and twisting the handle. The handle moved for about a third of the way and then stopped. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked. If they couldn’t get the door open, the entire mission was for nothing.
“I thought I saw a fragment of metal in the tumblers,” Creata said, standing up and walking over to Ivan’s body. She calmly rolled him over and unshipped his SPR, then walked back over to the safe and hammered on the handle until it moved. “That’s got it,” she added, twisting it all the way to open and then opening the safe.
“Whoa,” Mike said, blinking his eyes. “Sawn.”
“Kildar, we’ve mostly pulled back to the club except for the group on Dutro. We have cover on their back, but they are under heavy fire.”
“Okay, I need about…” Mike looked at the contents of the safe again and then shrugged. “About ten guys down here. Some of the girls will do but I’m going to need strong backs.”
“Roger, Kildar,” Sawn said. “Will do.”
“That is a lot of money,” Creata said, pulling out one of the stacks of euros. “A lot of money.”
“And the DVDs?” Mike asked, keeping an eye on the corridor.
“Here,” Creata said, pulling out two audio storage boxes and lifting the lid on one. “In crystal cases, yes?” she asked.
“Check them,” Mike said. “Vanner, what’s the status on that Allouette?”
“Glad to see you!” Anton shouted over the rotor wash.
“You may not be,” the pilot shouted back. “I know I’m not happy! See the machine guns?”
“Yes?” Gena shouted.
“They are to be used, yes?” the pilot said and then grinned. “As the Americans say, we are going Downtown.”
“There is firing in town,” Yevgenii Andrushkin said, looking over at Dmitri Balboshin. “And I cannot raise Yarok on his cell phone.”
Yevgenii and Dmitri had been assigned to the same Spetznaz team, straight out of training, Yevgenii as a brand new lieutenant and Dmitri as an equally shiny senior private. And both had left the teams at about the same time, after an offer they couldn’t resist from the Russian mafia. Since then, Yevgenii had risen on the paramilitary side of the mob, becoming a senior recruiter and leader of professionals in “wet work” while Dmitri had handled his personal security.
Yevgenii had reluctantly acceded to his former commander’s request to form a large force for the Albanian mob. The Albanians and the Russians often clashed, but if there was a new anticriminal special operations team running around, Yevgenii felt it in everyone’s interest to crush it as soon as possible.
That assumed that they could even get to the force before it completed its current raid. Yarok had said “soon” but not this soon.
“I could give a rat’s ass about Yarok,” Dmitri said, propping his SMG into a more comfortable position and fingering one of the frag grenades on his ammo vest. “We’d better get paid, though.”
“We will be,” Yevgenii said. “As long as we are not too late. Driver, hurry!”
“Yes, Mr. Kutkin,” the Albanian driver said, nervously. “But this road is very twisty—”
“I don’t care!” Yevgenii shouted, just as there was a crack from the roadside.
The small Keldara team had not had much time and they had only recently been through demolitions school. But the total of what they knew about dropping trees hadn’t been discovered yet.
The explosion sequence was started by three grenades, their pins loosened and attached to wires spread across the road at waist height. As the first bus hit the wires, the pins were pulled and each of the grenades detonated.
Under the grenades, the trees that they were rigger-taped to had a triple wrap of detcord with two small charges of Semtek wrapped in with it. The detcord detonated sympathetically from the grenades, detonating the Semtek in turn, and the base of the trees shot away from the road, bringing their crowns down like rockets.
But that wasn’t enough for the busy Keldara. They had run more detcord from the primary trees to others along the roadway, along with stringing claymores on their trunks.