“I have to tell you,” Dragunov said. “My yaytsa are killing me. I’m worried if I stop, I won’t be able to get moving again.”
“You’ll get movin’ again,” Gil said. “If I have to put a foot up your ass.”
Dragunov gave him a rueful grin, and they took up firing positions twenty feet apart. They could hear the enemy double-timing it in their direction, calling to one another as they came. It was a dangerous way to hunt the enemy, but without night vision or comms, there was no other way to organize a pursuit. Gil thought briefly of how it must have been for his father in the jungles of Vietnam, operating virtually blind in the night with nothing but a hazy starlight scope and unreliable comms, relying almost entirely upon the warrior instinct for survival.
“No way to have to fight a war,” he muttered, pulling the pins on a pair of grenades.
They waited until the Chechens drew within range and then lobbed two grenades apiece into their midst. The grenades detonated on impact, blasting men apart. Chaos ensued, and there was a lot of screaming as the forest erupted in an unholy display of machine-gun fire and tracer rounds. They hurled another pair of grenades each, and the enemy fell back under the bombardment.
Gil ran and grabbed Dragunov by the harness, hauling him up, and the two of them disappeared into the shadows.
Dokka Umarov seethed with rage over the enemy’s cowardly use of hit-and-run tactics.
“On your feet!” he shouted, kicking one of his men in the butt. “They’re already off again! Get after them!”
Anzor Basayev, his second in command, appeared at his side. “They’ll hit us again, Dokka. We need to be careful, or we’ll lose too many men.”
“How many grenades do you think they carry?” Umarov said. “At most, they have enough for one more ambush — and it’s getting light now. Soon we’ll have them in the valley, where they won’t be able to hide so well. Now get your unit moving!”
At this moment, the second runner from Lom’s group finally caught up to them. He’d gotten lost in the dark and hadn’t been able to find them until the sounds of battle told him the way.
“Dokka,” he said, his chest heaving. “I was sent to tell you the enemy cut our line and is coming this way. But it looks like they’ve already cut your line as well.”
Umarov bit back the foul remark that came to his tongue. “Where are Kovalenko and my idiot nephew?”
“Lom was wounded in the fight,” the runner said. “About Kovalenko, I don’t know.
Umarov looked at Basayev. “Do you suppose the Wolf has gotten himself killed?”
“I doubt it,” Basayev replied. “Dragunov and the American are running scared for a reason.”
Umarov grunted. “Get the men moving, tactical columns.”
Despite Umarov’s and Basayev’s hazing them on, the men were hesitant to move at the same reckless speed they had moved before, and the two leaders were forced to accept it; shouting at them would only continue to alert the enemy.
By the time they covered another couple hundred yards, it had gown light enough to see. A grenade went off at the front of the advance, hurling body parts into the air, and the men dove for cover, pouring fire at the unseen enemy.
“Stop firing!” Umarov screamed, grabbing a man by the jacket and jerking him to his feet. “Stop firing!”
“It was just a booby trap!” Basayev called down the line. “Everyone get up!”
The morale of the men was breaking fast. Umarov could smell the fear among them, and he knew that one more booby trap might be enough to break them for good. There was a commotion in their rear, and he turned to see Lom’s group dashing toward them through the forest. He was profoundly pleased to see his nephew, but not for the reasons Lom would have preferred.
“Where the hell have you been, imbecile?”
“They cut our line,” Lom slurred, his mouth bloody and grotesque. “We were running to catch up.”
Umarov took a quick head count of Lom’s men, relieved to see twenty fresh fighters. “Get your men to the front of the line.”
Lom went forward with his group, and Umarov saw the positive effect it had on the rest of his men.
“At least the fool is still good for something,” he told himself. “Forward now!” he hissed at his men. “Allah has provided!”
“As He will undoubtedly continue to do,” said a deep voice from behind.
Umarov turned to see Kovalenko standing beside a tree in his ghillie suit, cradling the ORSIS T-5000 in his arms.
“So the Wolf lives,” Umarov said. “I thought they might have killed you.”
Kovalenko stepped forward. “They’re trying to draw me into the valley. Their plan is to catch me in a cross fire. But they’re both wounded, and they have to be wearing down after all they’ve been through.”
Umarov smirked. “You wouldn’t know it from the way they continue to fight.”
“That’s because they’re the best the Russians and the Americans have to offer. You can stop trying to catch them now. Maneuver them instead. Let them reach the valley, where we can use your men to flush them out. Once they’re forced to expose themselves, I’ll finish the job.”
“I can’t afford to waste my men like that.” Umarov shook his head. “Not for two soldiers. I’m tempted to let them escape.”
Kovalenko put a hand Umarov’s shoulder. “That is what you cannot afford to do, old friend.”
Umarov stared into Kovalenko’s green eyes. “And why not?”
“Because this American will keep coming after us. We threaten their pipeline, remember?”
“Hitting the pipeline is a broken dream now.”
“No it’s not. Our friends in Moscow have begun to see the light, and if we can remove Dragunov and the American, it will demonstrate our resolve. Even Putin would like to see the pipeline destroyed — particularly since the Americans have chosen to oppose him in Ukraine. And though he could never be a direct party to it, he could choose to fight the pipeline’s destruction with one hand behind his back — and he could do so without criticism because the pipeline is not his to protect.”
“You’re saying Moscow is… What are you saying, Sasha?”
Kovalenko grinned, opening his hand to the morning sky. “I’m saying, where are the Russian helicopters?”
63
“There, right there!” General Couture pointed urgently at the screen, which now showed the battleground in living color by the light of day. “That’s the ghost! The guy in the ghillie suit we can barely make out!”
“Gotta be Kovalenko,” Brooks said, watching the camouflaged image moving stealthily along through the bare forest.
“Well, he’s hell and gone from the bridge crossing, isn’t he?” Couture grumbled, getting out of his chair. “ ‘Russian intelligence.’ Now, there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”
The president was at the back of the room, talking on the phone with Secretary of State Sapp, who was at the Georgian ambassador’s house trying to arrange for air support from the Georgian army. From the sounds of the conversation, Sapp wasn’t making a great deal of headway.
On the other screen, Gil and Kovalenko were approaching the edge of the forest at the opening to the valley.
“God in heaven, where are they going?” wondered the aging secretary of defense. “It’s a no-man’s-land.”
“I’m guessing Shannon’s going to try to set up a hide,” Brooks said. “All he needs is a few hundred yards of clear killing ground, and he’ll pick those Chechens off to the last man.”