Potsk glanced toward the bunker, then back at Leksi.
“Tell me the truth.” Leksi shifted the aim of his gun and fired. The round caught the other soldier in the leg, spinning him down to the ground. The man moaned in pain, looking up at Potsk.
“They are all in the bunker,” Potsk said. He knew the shots would have alerted his men.
“Don’t lie to me.” Leksi fired again, this time right between the soldier’s eyes. Potsk was stunned at the sight of the brains splattered onto the icy ground. The muzzle of Leksi’s submachine gun turned in his direction. “Are they all in the bunker?”
“Yes.”
Leksi signaled. The paratroopers had placed a missile on top of the tripod. With a flash the missile was off. One man watched through a sight, leading the wire-guided missile. It smashed into the front of the bunker, the armor-piercing nose punching through, the charge going off inside, making puree of the inhabitants.
“You pig!” Potsk yelled.
Leksi fired, almost negligently with one hand, the bullet taking off the top of Potsk’s head.
Leksi grabbed his commo man. “Bring the plane in. We don’t have much time.”
Chapter Ten
“I don’t give a damn what this guy says.” Colonel Metter’s voice was harsh, even with the dampener of the secure phone line. “I’m running this up the flagpole before we lose anyone else.”
“Raisor said that we have to keep quiet about Sergeant Stith’s death until he gives us the release,” Dalton said. He was standing in a room off the experimental chamber, talking to his commander on a direct satellite link phone. “I don’t think running it up the flagpole is going to do any good,” he added.
“How are the rest of the men?” Metter asked.
Looking around the door, Dalton could see into the chamber. “They just pulled the first two after me out. Both are okay. The rest seem to be doing all right.”
“You know they’re going to tell me to forget about it.” Metter was calming down, thinking about the reality of the situation.
Dalton knew what his commander meant. No matter what the colonel said, the Pentagon was going forward with this. “It’s the nature of the job, sir.”
“But I’m still going on record against this. From what you’re telling me, they haven’t got a good handle on what they’re trying to do.”
“No, sir, I don’t think they have.” Dalton hadn’t told Metter about the nukes, and he knew he couldn’t. “But they do have a high-priority mission that all this is aimed for. And it’s got a short fuse.”
“Is the mission worth losing men over?”
Dalton thought briefly of all the various missions he had been on where men had died. Few had been worth it. “Yes, sir, it is.”
There was a long silence. Dalton could hear the slight crackling in the earpiece, indicating the MILSTARS satellite the call was going through was frequency hopping, making sure the transmission couldn’t be intercepted. Dalton could see Raisor walking toward him across the experimental chamber. “Got to go, sir.”
“Good luck.”
The phone went dead.
“I assume you didn’t reveal any information you weren’t supposed to,” Raisor said.
Dalton glanced around. No one was close. He stepped close to the CIA man, invading his personal space. “Listen to me very carefully, because we are not having this conversation again. I know you’re holding information back from us. I highly recommend you stop doing that. Because what we don’t know could get us killed.”
Raisor started to say something, but Dalton got even closer. “I was doing special operations while you were still in diapers. Don’t treat me or these men like we’re just pieces of the machine to be used. We’re not. And we won’t accept being treated that way.”
Raisor met his eyes. “What are you going to do? Complain to your colonel?”
Dalton didn’t say anything. He remained perfectly still, looking deep into the other man’s eyes, until finally Raisor nodded. “I understand where you’re coming from.” He changed the subject abruptly. “We’ve got new information that changes things. You want to be informed, follow me.”
Dalton trailed the man across the experimental chamber. Captain Anderson was pulling on his fatigue shirt, his face drawn. Dalton gestured for the captain while Raisor called out for Dr. Hammond to join them.
The four entered the classroom. Raisor and Hammond sat behind the front desk while Dalton and Anderson took other seats.
“The nuclear weapons convoy has been moved up five days,” Raisor said.
Silence greeted that statement.
“We’re going to have to be operational in forty-seven hours,” Raisor continued.
Dalton waited on Hammond, as it was clear this was the first she had heard of this also.
She finally spoke. “That will be hard.”
“We have no option,” Raisor said.
“There are plenty of options,” Dalton countered.
“No, there aren’t.” Raisor leaned back in his seat, putting more distance between the two. “This is not open for discussion. We are going in forty-seven hours. The only issue is how do we prepare.”
Dalton repeated.
“I’m going with you, of course,” Raisor said. He turned to Captain Anderson. “You are the ranking man here, not the sergeant major. You are under orders to comply with any and all instructions I give you.”
“What the sergeant major is saying makes sense,” Anderson said. “I don’t think we can do this in two days. We’ve already lost a man.”
“It’s not up to you,” Raisor said. “Plus the person who knows if you can or can’t do it in two days is Dr. Hammond, not you or the sergeant major. And if you can’t follow orders, I’ll relieve you and find someone who can.”
Dalton remained silent, as did Captain Anderson. They knew that by doing so, they were assenting to the mission, but there really wasn’t much choice now. They’d pushed it as far as they could short of disobeying orders and getting court-martialed.
“We can do it,” Hammond interjected. “But we have to really accelerate the schedule. I’d like to get moving on developing avatars immediately.”
“Good,” Raisor said. “I’ll get as much intelligence as possible regarding our target.” He threw a satellite photo down on the desk. “Right now all we have is that the state of Kazakhstan is transferring twenty nuclear warheads via rail to Russia in accordance with the latest arms agreement signed between the two countries.
“The warheads will be on a train traveling from Semipalatinsk to Novosibirsk.” His finger traced a black line. “Along this rail line. Our analysts believe that the attack will occur just after the handover occurs on the Russian side of the border.”
“Why then?” Captain Anderson asked. “Why not on the Kazakhstan side?”
“Because we believe it is the Russian Mafia who will be conducting the raid. They have more power on the Russian side. They might even have infiltrated some of the soldiers who will be guarding the warheads.”
“What kind of security will the Russians have?” Anderson asked.
“One understrength company of infantry,” Raisor said. “About fifty men. The train itself will be armored.”
“That’s a pretty tough nut to crack” Anderson noted. “How do you figure the Mafia will be able to take it down?”
“We don’t know,” Raisor said. “But you do need to understand that the Mafia in Russia is very much unlike anything you’ve heard about here in the States. They are very powerful and well armed. There is a tremendous amount of firepower available on the black market in that part of the world. We’ve had reports of the Mafia having tanks and attack helicopters. Along with the trained personnel to use them. I have no doubt that if the Mafia wants to take down that train, they will do it.”