Grinning cruelly, Imrekov raised his 30mm autocannon. It fired once and then fell silent. Cannon ammunition expended, the KVM told him. He’d used up all of his rounds destroying the enemy fighters and bombers they’d caught on the ground. “Der’mo,” he growled. “Shit.”
So be it. He would handle this the old-fashioned way.
Imrekov sprinted toward the enemy soldiers who were shooting at him. More 5.56mm rounds spanged off his robot’s armor. He ignored the hits and ran on, closing fast.
At the last moment, the tiny group of Americans scrambled to their feet and tried to fall back. But it was too late. His KVM burst into their midst and blurred into lethal motion — lashing out with its robotic hands and feet. Airmen went flying in every direction, felled by powerful blows that crushed rib cages and shattered skulls.
Exhilarated by the ease with which he’d slaughtered his enemies, Imrekov crouched down among their mangled corpses, employing his passive and active sensors to scan for more targets to kill. To his intense annoyance, he could not find any.
The American air base was a sea of devastation. Buildings hit by Kh-35 warheads were smoldering heaps of broken concrete and twisted steel. Curtains of fire rippled high above destroyed fuel storage tanks. Wrecked aircraft and torn corpses littered the field.
Baryshev’s exultant voice broke into his thoughts. “Specter Lead to all Specter units. Mission complete. Disengage and withdraw to the rally point.”
Brought back to the present, Imrekov replied, “Two copies, Lead. Disengaging.” He brought the KVM back to its feet and moved off across the runway, joining the other RKU war machines as they broke off and headed for the woods.
Captain Paul Fraser skidded around the corner of a burning, bomb-ravaged building. Scorching waves of heat washed over him. Gasping, the Air Force captain raced on and broke out into the open. There, across the pad, he saw his HH-60G Pave Hawk search-and-rescue helicopter. His copilot, Seth Hahn, already had the bird spooling up. His crew had been on standby in case anything went wrong during the president’s visit.
Responding to a massive surprise missile and ground attack hadn’t been very high up on their briefed list of possible missions. But as far as Fraser could see, his Pave Hawk was the only flyable aircraft left at Barksdale. Which made it imperative that they get in the air and at least try to track the bastards who’d nailed the base.
He pulled himself up into the cockpit and dropped into his seat. Hahn tossed him his headset and he plugged in. “All set?”
“We’re set!” his copilot assured him. “The engines and flight controls look solid.”
“Gunners ready,” the two crewmen in back reported. They were already manning the HH-60G’s two 7.62mm miniguns.
Rapidly, Fraser ran through an extremely abbreviated takeoff checklist. The moment he finished, he throttled up to full power and took them into the air — climbing as fast as possible. They needed to break clear of the smoke and turbulence created by fires burning everywhere across the base.
A minute later, the Pave Hawk clattered over Barksdale’s runway, heading east at sixty knots. Sitting in the left-hand seat, Hahn peered down at the display he’d set to show images captured by their nose-mounted forward-looking infrared camera. “Contact with multiple thermal sources! Some sort of legged machines. Big suckers. Maybe twice human-sized. Maybe more. They’re moving east through the woods and bayous about five klicks ahead.”
“Speed?” Fraser asked.
“Damned fast,” his copilot said, sounding surprised. “Whatever those things are, they’re clocking at up to forty miles an hour. And that’s cross-country. None of them are using the roads or trails in this part of the reservation.”
“You’re shitting me,” Fraser said. He looked ahead through the windscreen. All he could see was a solid green canopy of trees and more trees. What kind of machines could move so fast right through the heart of that swampy, overgrown forest? And where the hell were they headed?
Enemy helicopter closing fast, Colonel Baryshev’s computer reported. He frowned, seeing the icon appear on his display. It was unfortunate that the Americans had been able to react so rapidly. This deep in the forest, his robot’s weapons would be of little use against an airborne target. He needed to find a better position. Through his neural link, the KVM highlighted a small clearing not far away. It was the site of a mothballed oil and gas well, one of the dozens scattered across this part of Louisiana.
He splashed across a shallow bayou in a spray of muddy water and pounded through the woods at high speed, leaving a trail of broken branches and flattened undergrowth. On the run, he detached an American-made Stinger surface-to-air missile from one of his weapons packs.
Baryshev broke out into the clearing and swiveled around to face the oncoming helicopter. It was very close now… no more than a few hundred meters away and little more than a couple of hundred meters above the forest canopy. A harsh buzz sounded in his headset. The Stinger’s infrared seeker had locked on.
He fired.
The missile streaked skyward in a plume of flame and white exhaust. Only a second later, before its crew could trigger their countermeasures, the Stinger exploded just below the helicopter’s main rotor. Trailing smoke and torn pieces of rotor blade, the Pave Hawk tumbled out of the sky and crashed into the woods.
Baryshev started moving again, heading for the rally point secured by Kirill Aristov and his Spetsnaz troops. Once there, his KVMs would be loaded back aboard three FXR Trucking semitrailer trucks that had been specially converted to hide them. Then Aristov and his “truckers” would simply drive away, blending in with local traffic. And the Americans would be left without any clues as to where the enemy who’d just blasted Barksdale Air Force Base to hell had vanished.
Seventeen
With his chin tucked against his chest and his hands up to protect his face, Brad McLanahan closed in to make an attack. Quick as lightning, his opponent lashed out with a straight punch aimed at his chin. He parried it and riposted — only to find himself striking at empty air as she danced away out of reach.
“You are slow today, Brad,” Nadia Rozek said with a grin. There was a challenging gleam in her eye. She’d backed away across the padded practice mat and now stood balancing easily on the balls of her feet, obviously ready to react to any new move he made. This close to the dinner hour, they had the Iron Wolf gym all to themselves.
“Maybe you’re just hellaciously fast,” he countered. Then he grinned back at her. “Or maybe this is part of my cunning plan to lure you in closer.”
“For what? A kiss?”
“Well, either that… or a good shot at a couple of elbow strikes and a quick leg sweep,” Brad allowed.
Nadia dropped back into a fighting stance. “Well, then, come and take your best shot,” she taunted.
They closed with each other again and exchanged a rapid-fire flurry of blows, kicks, and parries delivered with stunning speed and precision. Each of them landed hits that could have been disabling if it hadn’t been for their protective sparring gear. Shaking off the pain, they broke contact a second time and fell back to their respective corners.
“Captain McLanahan! Major Rozek!” Brad heard someone call.
He glanced toward the voice, keeping a wary eye on Nadia with his peripheral vision. In the past, she’d proved all too willing to throw a sucker punch or three or four at distracted opponents. “All is fair in love, war, and Krav Maga,” was the excuse she’d gleefully offered.