Mike looked over his shoulder at a series of cracks. But the sound of trees falling indicated that Adams was just putting in a roadblock. Good old Adams, he always came through.
“Is it well, Mr. Jenkins?” Dr. Arensky called from in the tent.
“Yeah, no problem,” Mike yelled. “Just putting in a roadblock to slow the Chechens down. Where we at?”
“Down to the last sample,” Dr. Arensky called back, cheerfully. “Padrek has been most helpful.”
“He’s a helpful lad,” Mike replied. “What are we going to do when you’re done? Anything else?”
“I would suggest burning this tent and our containment gear. Most thoroughly.”
“Antoniya… ” Mike said to Padrek’s assistant team leader. He was personally blanking on starting a fire in the pouring rain.
“I’ll go find some gas cans,” the Keldara said. “Diesel rather. We have thermite grenades to start them. That should work even in this mess.”
“Exactly,” Mike said. “Vanner?” he said, touching his throat mike.
“Right here, sir,” Vanner said from behind him.
“Jesus!” Mike said as he jumped. “I think that’s the first time in fifteen years someone’s snuck up behind me.”
“I didn’t exactly sneak, sir,” Vanner replied. “I’ve been standing here for ten minutes.”
“What’s the update?”
“According to the girls,” Vanner said, referring to the intel section back at the caravanserai, “there is one Chechen battalion moving in from the north. That’s one of their heavier batts, about four to five hundred. They are assembling vehicles and sending forward groups as they get transportation. In addition, we’re getting heavy signal traffic across the area. They know the op went down, we’ve been ID’d as Spetznaz, Delta and, worst, Keldara. General concensus is coming down on Keldara and they seriously want our ass. There are indications that a blocking force is going in on the road to Georgia. We can make it part of the way, but I’m not sure we’ll have the correlation of forces to force our way through. Right now it’s a small force, but there’s a short battalion, about a hundred, making their way to the blocking point.”
He’d pulled out a large pad with a plasma screen and now cycled it on. The screen was about the size of a sheet of 8x11 paper and had a map of the area. On it the friendly units were designated by blue icons and enemies were marked with red. Where either were off the screen their direction and distance was marked with karats pointed to the sides. Mike took the pad, scrolled out for a look around and shook his head. Red icons were piping up all over the map. Most of them were already showing movement symbols towards their position. The main threat, though, was the Chechen battalion approaching from the north. However, the defenses to the south showed heavy weapons capability and dug in defenses. Then he noted the symbol at the opening of the Guerrmo Pass.
And none of that covered units that signal intercept hadn’t picked up. Some units could have been contacted and told to move but didn’t respond. The girls might have missed an intercept.
Mike hadn’t planned on the destruction of the smallpox taking so long and he’d always known the mission was on a knife-edge. Currently, the situation was headed towards true military FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition.
“How very good,” Mike said. “We still in contact with higher?”
“Affirmative,” Vanner replied. “There’s a Predator up, not that it can see or do anything. But we’re looking at clearing in about six hours. I got a note that there was a satellite pass but I don’t have that, yet.”
“I’d like to be out of here in six hours,” Mike pointed out.
“Unlikely, sir,” Vanner pointed out. “The blocking force is heavy weapons heavy. We’d be trying to fight our way past bunkers blocking the road. And, sir, we have very limited heavy weapons, no air support… ”
“I’m aware of the issues, Vanner,” Mike said. “Okay, what’s our secondary?”
“Guerrmo Pass,” Vanner said. “We take the road up about five klicks then unass and head up through the hills. Unfortunately, we have recent reports from the Rangers that the Chechens also have a heavy weapons position, three bunkers ID’d, in the pass. On the backside, admittedly, oriented to prevent entry from the Georgian side. But there are forces there.”
“Saw that,” Mike said as sporadic firing started to the north. “Cross that pass when we come to it. Dr. Arensky?”
“Just done,” Arensky replied. “Preparing to come out. I would suggest that you set two more sets of environment suits outside the tent. We will exit and change into those. Then we will torch the entire assembly, after breaking the flasks through the tent fabric. Padrek and I will remain in the suits for a few days as quarantine in case we have not been as successful in containment as I have hoped.”
“Sucks to be you,” Mike muttered. “Works. We’ve got cans of diesel and thermite grenades on the ground outside the tent. We’ll just back off, shall we?”
“Please.”
“Right, Vanner, call in the dogs. By the time they get here, it’ll be time to run.”
“Hold your fire,” Adams said.
The Chechens had apparently sent out vehicles as fast as they could find them. Given that Adams had stolen most of their dedicated trucks, the lead group was one Toyota pickup, the mujaheddin vehicle of choice, and a motley collection of Ladas, Paykans and various other small sedans. The Toyota was in the lead and one of the mujaheddin in the bed had a light machine-gun across the top of the truck.
That would have been a bright move if the driver had actually seen the first tree in time.
The Toyota slammed on its brakes but it was far too close to do anything other than cause it to slew sideways. Before it could start to roll from the turn, the right front wheel hit the poplar in the road. The vehicle launched upwards and over, doing a flip in the air before landing amongst the larger trees that made up the bulk of the roadblock.
“Now open fire,” Adams said as the mujaheddin who had been standing up holding the machine gun slammed across one of the trees with an audible “crack” as his back broke. It really didn’t matter since his head hit another log at the same time, splashing brains and blood across the road in a spray.
The teams had loaded fairly light for this mission so most of the machine-gun teams, who usually carried NATO 7.62 M240s, were armed with M249 Squad Automatic Weapons which fired the lighter 5.56 round.
That didn’t help the Chechens much. Before they could even begin to bail out of their vehicles the four teams opened up with a whithering storm of gunfire, stitching the vehicles with fire. The rifle Keldara fired in controlled three round bursts, aiming for the shadows of men in the vehicles, the rounds cracking through windscreens and doors. The SAWs sounded very much like chainsaws, ripping off five round bursts that stitched the vehicles with small, neat, lines of bullet holes.
Two of the Chechens made it out into that hail of lead, trying to reach the cover of the nearby stream, but they didn’t even make it three steps before falling into the road. The movement had attracted several of the Keldara’s fire and the two did a dance as the dozens of rounds stitched them.
“Check fire,” Adams said over the team circuit. “Snipers. If you see anyone moving, finish them off.”
“Master Chief. Vanner. Kildar says pull in the dogs.”
“Belay that,” Adams said. “Everyone get to the trucks. We’re out of here. Oleg, arm the claymores. Sawn, drop a marker.”