The Russians had the Chechens blocked east and west, and the rocky slope mitigated any hope of fleeing to the north. The only avenue of escape was to the south toward the open country. But there they would surely be caught out and killed by the Hind, even if they managed to outrun the Spetsnaz, which was unlikely.
Basayev appeared at Umarov’s side with the radio telephone unit. “They’re coming!” he shouted over the din. “Prina’s men are close enough to hear the shooting. Can we hold for ten more minutes?”
Umarov peered up through the trees, looking for the Hind. He could still hear the machine, but it seemed to have circled south, probably attempting to cover both escape routes.
“Fall back!” he shouted to his men, hating the order but knowing there was no other hope except to link up with Prina’s men, who would have the RPGs needed to even the odds against the Spetsnaz and keep the aircraft at bay.
Four men volunteered to stay behind and cover the retreat, knowing it meant their deaths.
Umarov smiled at them. “Allah be with you!” He then fell back through the forest with the remainder of his force: fifteen men out of the original forty-five.
The second the return fire began to trail off, Yakunin knew that the Chechens were retreating. “Move forward! They’ve broken!”
The Spetsnaz maneuvered directly into the Chechen encampment, maintaining fire superiority and moving from cover to cover. A light machine gun cut loose from between two boulders, its 7.62 mm fire cutting apart two men from less than fifty feet away. The position was reduced immediately by a barrage of 40 mm grenades, and the Spetsnaz swept past.
“It’s a defense in depth!” Yakunin called out. “Take care!” He slowed their advance, knowing that a running fight could be twice as dangerous.
“Grenades!” Everyone hit the dirt as four black orbs landed in their midst.
The grenades exploded at the same time, each RGD-5 packed with four ounces of TNT. Bodies were lifted into the air, and Yakunin felt hot shrapnel bite into one of his legs.
Two more grenades rained down from an unseen position, exploding among the Spetsnaz, and Yakunin ordered his people to fall back. “Find that filthy son of a whore!” he screamed.
As if to oblige, the Chechen jumped from behind a tree eighty feet away with an AK-47, firing and hitting the major on the breastplate of his body armor.
Yakunin was knocked back by the force of the bullets, which failed to penetrate, though one did tear off most of his left ear.
The Chechen was gunned down an instant later.
“Find Umarov’s body!” Yakunin swiped at the side of his head with a gloved hand to see the glove covered in blood.
The medic arrived at his side. “The ear’s gone, Major. I’ll dress the wound.”
“Later!” Yakunin shouldered past. “Find Umarov!”
The Spetsnaz fanned out to examine the bodies, all of them well acquainted with Umarov’s face. Each body was knifed in the throat to make sure it was dead.
One of bodies leapt to its feet as a Spetsnaz corporal reached to turn it over. The Chechen shot the corporal in the groin with a pistol, and the corporal dropped to his knees, pressing the trigger mechanism on a spring-loaded ballistic knife. The steel blade struck the Chechen in the chest, partially severing the aorta. Both men were on the ground bleeding out when a sergeant bound forward and shot them both.
“Major!” the sergeant called. “Dokka Umarov is not here!”
“After him!” The sudden ripping sound of the Yak minigun to the east told them the Hind had reacquired the retreating Chechens. “Now we’ve got his ass!”
28
Gil lay prone in the brush on a bluff overlooking the goat farm three hundred yards below. Peering through the scope of the G28 sniper rifle, he could clearly make out the red LaForza and the black Peugeot, both parked behind the house with Kovalenko’s car, where they could not be seen from the country road.
“It’s them, all right,” Gil said, moving aside for Dragunov to have a look. “Midori got it on the first try.”
Dragunov watched as one of Kovalenko’s men stepped out the backdoor of the house, smoking a cigarette. “Demetri,” he muttered, recognizing the Chechen Spetsnaz man. “Mudak!” Jacket!
Gil saw him fingering the trigger. “Ease off, Ivan. We only got twenty rounds. I don’t want you wasting my ammo.”
Dragunov moved aside with a smirk. “I can shoot as well as you.”
“I know,” Gil said, getting back behind the rifle and pulling the stock into his shoulder. “You can probably fuck as good as me too, but this ain’t fantasyland.”
Dragunov chuckled. “Do you think Claudina will still be there with the car when we get back?”
They had left Claudina with her car a half mile up the road, and she had promised to wait, but Gil didn’t expect to see her ever again. “Not even thinkin’ about it,” he said, dialing in the scope. “Why? You in love?”
Dragunov chuckled again. “Fuck you, American. I just don’t feel like walking all the way to San Vito to meet your pussy SEAL team friends.”
Gil smiled, placing the reticle on the head of the man Dragunov had referred to as Demetri. “We’ll take Kovalenko’s wheels. How’s that sound?” He squeezed the trigger and blew off most of Demetri’s head from the nose up. The body dropped beside the stone house, and Gil saw a puff of dust as the .308 ricocheted off the wall. “And down went McGinty.”
Dragunov hunkered in. “Who’s McGinty?”
“A drowned Irishman. Look sharp now. Those other pricks may have heard the round hit the house.”
They waited more than five minutes before another Chechen came out. He spotted the body near the far end of the house and turned to duck back inside, but Gil squeezed the trigger again, scoring a second head-shot that blew the Chechen’s brains into the house through the window of the backdoor. The body crashed to the floor half in and half out of the house.
“That’ll kindly spoil a man’s dinner plans.”
“You should have let me identify him,” Dragunov said. “If it was Kovalenko, we could have gotten the hell out of here.”
“It was that bald prick who shot me in the fuckin’ hand back in Messina.”
“Anton,” Dragunov growled. “Another sukin syn.”
“Well, he’s a dead sukin syn now.” Gil pulled back a little farther into the brush. “We gotta be real careful from here on. If Kovalenko knows his shit, he’ll roost in that upstairs window.”
“Can you see inside?”
“Not as well as I’d like,” Gil admitted.
“Then he won’t roost there — not if there’s any chance you can see in. He’ll move out the front to hunt us on the ground.”
“Then you’d better get Midori back on the phone. Tell her to watch if anyone comes out.”
Dragunov had Midori on the satellite phone a minute later, explaining the situation.
The bluff was high enough for Gil to see beyond the house but still low enough that the leeward defilade stretched for a hundred feet or more. The best thing Gil and Dragunov had going for them was that there was no way for Kovalenko or his men to reach any of the vehicles without falling under the gun.
“He may wait until night,” Dragunov remarked.
“Only if he’s a damn fool. For all he knows, we’ve called for backup.”