Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 25





6:03 AM

Eastern Kazakhstan Province

Republic of Kazakhstan





Daniel shifted in the front passenger seat of the Toyota Land Cruiser, struggling to keep his eyes open. The SUV sped down the improvised road toward a small, isolated town along their route to connect with Highway A345. The road was in better condition than they had expected, but the constant presence of potholes and washouts kept the Land Cruiser in a seemingly endless cycle of rapid, unexpected maneuvers.

Once they hit A345, the brutal jostling would stop, and they should have a comfortable, straight shot to Astana, followed by a flight out of this Godforsaken corner of earth. Daniel shook his head and refocused on the wrinkled map in his lap. His arm brushed up against the AK-74 assault rifle jammed against the door as he fumbled to keep it steady enough to read.

"We're coming up on Kaynar. The highway is about ten miles beyond that," he said.

Farrington simply nodded in the driver's seat. They all felt the same about getting to the highway and getting the f*ck out of Kazakhstan. Whatever the scientists had created and tested on their subjects in the hills outside of Kurchatov, they had wanted to conceal it badly enough to build a brand new crematorium.

They filed their report via satellite and sent all of their pictures with the stationary satellite rig, counting the minutes as the megabytes uploaded. More importantly to the five men in the SUV, "Dusty" had sent detailed routing coordinates to the CIA's operations center, with high hopes that Berg would launch a Predator drone from the U.S. airbase in Manas, Kyrgystan, to cover their withdrawal. They hadn't run into any trouble so far, but Berg had confirmed that they had been under direct surveillance, and they all expected the worst. At least the Predator had been launched, though they hadn't received any confirmation that it had arrived.

Daniel glanced at the surrounding terrain, as the low structures grew in the windshield. The indomitable steppe lands yielded little in terms of visual interest. They passed a few fissures that spread perpendicular to the road, but beyond that, the town of Kaynar was the only thing that attracted his eye. The road fell away to the right, yielding a crude ditch that they had followed since crossing a stone bridge a few minutes ago. These rudimentary improvements provided the only sign that they might be entering an inhabited area. Daniel couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to live here. The Geiger counters had assured his team that their DNA would likely remain unaltered, but none of them could shake the uneasy feeling that nothing could erase the ill effects produced by nearly fifty years of Soviet nuclear testing in the region.

The sun finally cracked the seemingly endless and featureless eastern horizon, changing the landscape's grayish blue hue to a dull, grayish brown. Not much of an improvement, he thought and checked his watch. 0510. They had been driving for three hours in the dark, through some of the shittiest roads he had ever experienced. Sunlight was a welcome sight. A tiny reflection of sunlight from Kaynar caught his eye and before he could react, Farrington jammed the steering wheel to the right, spilling everyone to the left side of the cabin.

The SUV skidded to a halt in the side ditch, throwing everyone against their seatbelts just a fraction of a second before the road ahead of them erupted into a geyser of dirt and rocks. The blast's concussion rocked the vehicle, but left the SUV undamaged. Daniel opened the passenger door and spilled out into the ditch as earthen debris rained down on them, pelting the SUV's thin metal roof and hood in an unsteady hollow rhythm. The sharp crack of supersonic bullets immediately followed, adding to the unspoken urgency of their situation. He grabbed a backpack from the vehicle and yelled into the back seat at their CIA liaison.

"Get your pack and get the f*ck out of here!" he said, as the front windshield shattered, followed by the repeated hollow popping sounds of bullets puncturing the steel hull of the Toyota.

He didn't need to tell the rest of his team what to do. They had started to bail out of the vehicle before it had come to a complete stop, and he could already hear the distinctive pounding of their Russian assault rifles. Several long bursts, mixed with semi-automatic fire. His team was on auto-pilot and would require little direction at this point. He glanced toward Kaynar, but couldn't make an immediate assessment of the situation. The cloud of dust and dirt caused by the explosion on the road still obscured the view between their position and the village, which would give them a few more precious seconds of concealment. His first priority was the satellite phone.

Dustin Bremer was still in the SUV fumbling with gear when Daniel drew even with his door. He reached inside and grabbed Dusty by his collar, yanking him out of the vehicle. He made sure that the CIA agent kept a grip on the bag that contained their satellite phone.

"My rifle!" Dusty yelled, trying to reach back into the Land Cruiser.

"F*ck the rifle, Dusty. Your job is to get the Predator here…we're f*cked without it!" Daniel said, pushing the young CIA agent forward.

"Suppressive fire! Shift to the other side of the road!" Daniel screamed.

Farrington lay prone near the crest of the road, firing extended bursts from his AKS-74 at the village 150 meters away. Sergei, Andrei and Leo sprinted across the road, throwing themselves to the ground on the eastern side. Although the eastern side of the road didn't fall off into a ditch like the western side, it was raised high enough to give them adequate cover from the automatic weapons fire that poured out of the town. The western side of the road was exposed to the majority of the town's structures, and Daniel could already tell that a majority of the opposing gunfire emanated from the structures and low stone walls on that side of the road. They would have been open to a systematic pulverization if they had instinctively stayed with their SUV.

He shoved Dusty across the road amidst the snap and crack of a dozen near misses before kneeling next to Farrington.

"Nice parking job!"

"I could have parked us on top of that IED!" Farrington replied, quickly changing rifle magazines.

Daniel immediately saw what Farrington meant. A smoldering crater now covered the left side of the road less than fifteen meters ahead of them, created by an explosive force ten times more powerful than a rocket propelled grenade. By swerving right and taking them below the level of the road, Farrington had shielded the entire vehicle from the fragmentation effects of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Farrington continued to impress Petrovich.

"I'm glad you didn't. We're in a bad way here!" Daniel said.

The road around Farrington and Petrovich started to explode with the impact of bullets and the distinctive crack of near misses filled Daniel's ears, barely competing with the prolonged bursts of thunderous fire from Farrington's rifle. A few seconds later, Farrington's rifle fell silent and one of the assault rifles on the other side of the road picked up the slack. Farrington started to reload again, but Daniel slapped him on the back.

"Get across, I'll cover," he said and dropped to the road next to Farrington, shouldering his own AKS-74 toward the village.

Through his Trijicon 4X ACOG, he lined up a target partially obscured by one of the buildings on the left side of the road and pulled the trigger twice, absorbing the recoil in his collarbone. He wanted to clear as many of their attackers from the eastern side of the road as possible so they could fully use the elevated road as cover. Anyone firing at them from the eastern side of the road would be able to shoot right down the exposed axis of his team. Focused on his new job, he barely noticed Farrington scoot over his legs and dive for cover among the group on the other side of the road.

He saw the figure he had just shot stumble into the open and crumple to the ground. Satisfied that the ACOG scope was sufficiently zeroed for this range, he started to systematically acquire and shoot any targets that presented him with enough surface area for a clean shot. He didn't require much of a commitment in terms of exposure at this range. At roughly 150 meters, if the enemy gave him three quarters of a human skull for more than a second, he could remove most of it.

Two quick shots, one second of silence. He repeated this three more times, silencing four more shooters on the eastern side of the road before the intense volume of fire concentrated on Daniel's location forced him to vacate his overly exposed position.

He rolled off the road and righted himself, searching around for Dusty. The CIA agent lay huddled against the shallow road bank, assembling the team's satellite phone for mobile use. Daniel turned toward his team, all of whom were frenetically engaging targets with semi-automatic fire.

"Start moving up the road. Keep one weapon up for suppression. We need to close the distance to the village. If our air support shits the bed, we won't last long out here. F*ck! Crossing! Take them down!" he screamed and stood up to shoot at several figures sprinting across the road.

Every weapon on the road and in the village started to unleash long sustained bursts of automatic fire at his team, as the enemy tried to suppress their efforts to gun down the squad sent to cross the fifty-yard stretch between the western and eastern sides of the village. Despite the incredible volume of incoming fire, Petrovich's team held steady and concentrated all of their fire on the ten men trying to cross the road. Each man in his team crouched low, reducing their exposure to enemy fire as much as possible, while keeping their rifle optics trained on the erratically moving targets over a football field away.

Daniel put the ACOG sight's red arrow tip a few notches ahead of the lead runner, and squeezed the trigger twice, briefly seeing a dusty red aerosolized cloud erupt behind the soldier. He tracked another target and fired twice, sending the man into a momentum fueled tumble across the gravel road. The intensity of fire was unbearable, and Daniel could barely hear the sharp cracks of his team's rifles over the hisses and snaps from hundreds of incoming rounds. He ducked down further and took his eyes off the scope to assess the damage they had done to the squad sent on the suicide mission.

Through the cloud of dust, he saw several lifeless clumps spread out along the road, confirming the massacre. He started to lean back into the scope when he saw Andrei's head snap back, followed by a dark red shower that stained the grayish brown dirt in an arc five feet behind the body. Daniel's eye was back on the scope before Andrei's body hit the ground.

Daniel resisted the urge to check Andrei and squinted through the scope at the lone soldier who had succeeded at crossing the murder zone. The man threw his body over a low stone wall that ran parallel to the road and straightened up for the short run to the safety of a one-story cinder block building. Petrovich put the tip of the scope's red arrow one notch over from the moving figure and pulled the trigger, stopping the soldier in his tracks. The red arrow quickly found the soldier's now stationary head, and the reckless charge across the road ended unceremoniously.

"Keep moving forward and don't let anyone cross that f*cking road," Daniel said. "Do you have the Predator?" he yelled to Dusty.

"I don't have shit yet. I can't get through to the Ops center!" Dusty screamed desperately.

"Are you shitting me? F*ck! Is the Goddamn thing working?"

"It's working. Nobody is answering…"

Three smoke trails arched lazily out of the western village, deceptively slow at first, until they passed the team's position and raced about twenty meters past them toward the vicinity of the Land Cruiser. One of the rockets skipped off the road, unexploded, and sailed at a forty-five degree angle skyward. The other two exploded on the western bank of the road, presumably destroying their truck. Although they didn't see the rockets hit the SUV, one of the vehicle's side view mirrors landed in the middle of the road, confirming the assumption.

"Keep trying and stay with the team. Pick up Andrei's rifle. He's gone," Daniel said and jogged back to his team.

Farrington and the two remaining combat operatives directed their fire at the soldiers in and around the houses on the western side of the village. Dozens of bullets skipped off the road, kicking up dust and pelting their exposed faces with stinging bits of rock that caused them to frequently shield their eyes behind their weapons.

Another round of rockets sailed out of the western village, heading toward their position, and Daniel could immediately tell that two of the 85mm high explosive warheads would fly harmlessly overhead. The third had frightening potential. He was pretty sure it would slam into the road bank on the western side, but knew from experience that these things never flew a completely straight path.

"Down! Down!" he screamed, and the team slid below the top of the road.

Everyone ducked except for Farrington, who sat firmly in position against the road, firing continuously at targets as the warhead exploded against the steep road bank opposite the team. Daniel popped back up and followed one of the smoke trails back to its point of origin. He stared through his scope and found a team of two men reloading the RPG-7. This was the first time he took a few moments to study their attackers.

Dressed in local garb, neither of the two men would have attracted his attention from this distance, beyond the fact that they were reloading a Soviet-style rocket launcher. He had half expected to see Kazakhstan Special Forces, but their presence would have indicated a major problem. His team's visit to the area wasn't openly approved by the Kazakhstan government; however, through back channels within the Interior Ministry, they had been assured that no organized military or local interference would become a problem, as long as they were relatively discreet.

Daniel zeroed in on the shooter's upper chest and started to squeeze the trigger when he noticed an earpiece with a thin microphone. He paused for a second to confirm the microphone set, which meant they were dealing with a more sophisticated force than he had originally suspected. None of this was a good sign. He confirmed the presence of a similar communications rig on the man reloading the rocket tube and returned the scope's view to the man holding the tube. Two quick shots and the man crumpled out of sight behind a stone wall. The second shooter disappeared.

"Keep going! We need to get into those buildings! Let's go!" he said and signaled for Dusty to close the gap.

They started to make some gains toward the buildings ahead of them, passing the crater from the roadside bomb meant for their truck. The crater still hissed and smoked from the sizable explosive and was large enough to accommodate at least one of his men. He considered stuffing Dusty in the hole, where he'd be safest, but didn't want to separate any members of his team under the circumstances, especially the one carrying their satellite phone. Not that it was doing them any good at the moment.

The four men moved in teams of two, one team rushing forward ten meters, while the other fired at targets of opportunity in the village. Using this hasty method, they closed the distance to the village to fifty meters, but they also didn't hit any targets along the way. They had sacrificed accuracy for speed, which wasn't the only bad news. The drop-off on their side of the road had gradually faded, forcing them to press their bodies into the dried mud and low-crawl toward the village. Daniel knew they had gone as far as they could go like this. He felt high velocity rounds slice through his backpack with regular frequency, and if they crawled any further, these rounds would start to strike home in his back. He squirmed back until the backpack was protected by the lip of the road.

"Stay put!" he yelled to Farrington.

"No shit…that f*cker better get Langley on the line, or this is going to end badly for us," Farrington said.

Farrington was right. They were out of fresh options. Like the enemy soldiers that had tried to cross the barren stretch of road a few minutes ago, Daniel's team wouldn't make it halfway to the buildings forty to fifty meters directly ahead of them. He counted roughly fifteen shooters still operating in the western village, some firing from positions closer than seventy-five meters away. They'd be dead or bleeding out within a few seconds of standing up for the run. He rolled over onto his side and twisted his body so he could see Dusty. The CIA agent looked terrified and shook his head slowly, staring into Daniel's eyes with a look of extreme regret. He didn't need to ask. No air support.

"F*ck. No air support guys. Any ideas?" Daniel said.

Sergei spoke for the first time since the SUV slammed into the ditch. "We spread out along the road and trim their numbers. They might withdraw at some point. Maybe the f*cking Kazahk army will show up and finish this for us."

"They aren't making the same mistakes anymore. It's getting harder and harder to hit any of them. We'll run out of ammo long before any sizable Kazakh force arrives," Farrington replied.

"We're pretty much f*cked. I'm down to two mags," Leo added, tapping one of his two remaining thirty-round magazines against the front hand guard of his weapon before inserting it.

"I'm down to one," Farrington stated, between rapid trigger pulls.

Daniel reached into one of his cargo pockets and removed two additional magazines, tossing them at Farrington.

"We'll be down to pistols in less than ten minutes," Farrington stated matter-of-factly, casually retrieving the ammunition magazines from the dirt.

"We could try to get back to the Land Cruiser. We have a couple of marking grenades stashed in the rear. Doesn't look like they detonated with the RPG hits. Might get us across," Sergei said.

Daniel gave this a few microseconds of thought, but dismissed it just as quickly. The wind swept east to west and would not laterally cover their north to south route. Plus, the marking grenades didn't generate the same amount of smoke as a standard screening grenade. It would put out enough red smoke to be easily spotted by a passing aircraft, but would not adequately obscure their passage. Still, it might come to this. Daniel ran the remaining option through his head. None of them looked good.

In all of the noise and confusion, nobody lying along the road heard the armed MQ-1 Predator drone pass overhead. It also went unobserved by everyone inside the village.



**



Major David Adler pulled back gently on the joystick, sending "Crabby Girl" upward to gain another 1000 feet of altitude for its initial attack run. Everyone in the Ground Control Station (GCS) in Kyrgyzstan was nervous about this flight. First, the fact that they had been abruptly awoken at one thirty in the morning and handed a last minute CIA mission didn't sit well with any of the three Air Force personnel. Learning twenty minutes later that the Predator drone had been fitted with two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles made them even more nervous. Nobody inside the air-conditioned, camouflaged metal box sitting next to the main runway had previously flown a live armed mission.

The crew stationed at Manas had previously flown routine reconnaissance missions in support of Tajikistan/Afghanistan border tightening measures. Major Adler hadn't even been aware that the base stored Hellfire missiles. To put it mildly, the "pucker factor" was high in the GCS, and Sergeant Juan Salazar had almost walked off the mission when they were given the initial flight path vector: north into Kazakhstan airspace. Only one of Staff Sergeant Kelly McIntyre's patented pep talks kept him in his seat.

All of them nearly stormed out of the GCS when the flight's operational commander, CIA Assistant Counter-Terrorism Director Karl Berg, gave them the final coordinates of the Predator's "bullpen." The holding area was located 535 miles into Kazakhstan airspace. In another 30 to 40 miles, "Crabby Girl," named affectionately in honor of Salazar's opinionated six-year-old daughter, would cross its Point of No Return.

The drone had a maximum range of 675 miles and needed to return to base shortly if it were to be landed safely. Clearly, this was not part of the CIA's plan. Now they'd be the "crew" that lost a Predator drone. None of them needed this kind of shit, but they didn't have the authority to abandon the mission. The door to the GCS was sealed, and Berg had been given legitimate command over the mission by their superiors. They all settled in for the steaming shit sandwich they had been served, which only seemed to get tastier every time Berg's voice came over the secure communications link.

"Do we even know who we're firing at?" Tech Sergeant Salazar said.

"It doesn't matter," McIntyre replied, adjusting the laser designator's screen resolution.

She wouldn't have a lot of time to acquire the best target cluster to help the friendly ground unit, so she opened the aperture for the multi-spectral targeting system. This would give her a wide view when the Predator reached the apex of Hesselman's climb and started to descend.

"Exactly," Hesselman said, "the friendly unit is under fire. We're under orders to provide them with close air support. Here we go, coming out of the climb…and, three, two, one…over the top."

McIntyre studied the screen and immediately switched to thermal imaging, once she had positively identified and marked the friendlies. Any other thermal signatures were valid targets. She just hoped the firefight had cleared the village of any remaining innocent bystanders.



**



Daniel risked a glance at the western village and saw several slightly exposed targets. With well-aimed shots from his rifle, he knew he could hit them. Unfortunately, the incoming rifle fire had become extremely accurate, preventing him from raising his AK-74 above road level to fire anything more than a hastily aimed burst. He hunkered back down along with the rest of the team. Even Farrington wouldn't risk more than a quick shot. They had lost what little initiative they had managed to muster in the face of a sudden ambush and had stalled out along the road, unable to press forward without certain catastrophic casualties. Daniel had started to reconsider the marking grenade option, when a shattering explosion rattled the ground and sent a shock wave over the road.

"Something big hit them…let's go!" Farrington yelled and wasted no time starting to sprint toward the structures directly ahead of them.

A second massive explosion rocked the outskirts of the western village, just as Daniel started to sprint with the rest of his team. Amazingly, Dusty managed to sprint past him before they closed half the distance to their destination. The volume of incoming fire dropped to nothing as they expended all of their remaining energy and lung capacity reserves to reach the concrete structures.

By the time Daniel's shoulder slammed against the closest wall, Farrington and Sergei had started firing single, well aimed shots through the red dot sights on their assault rifles. They quickly spread out through the cluster of crudely built, Soviet style bungalows. Leo had bent over one of the dead attackers that Daniel had killed minutes earlier.

Daniel slid along the wall to Farrington's crouched figure and swung his rifle around the same corner, staying upright. Their attackers had rallied quickly after the massive explosions, and there was no time to scan the sky for their air support. It didn't matter anyway, since they all knew that the Predator only carried two missiles. Still, if they could get in touch with the operator, they might be able to get some live intelligence about the attacking force. They were in much better shape now that they had reached the cover of these buildings, but they were far from being out of the woods.

Daniel spotted a target issuing hand signal orders and placed the illuminated red arrow tip at the base of the man's face. He pulled the trigger twice and saw the rust colored mist fill the air behind the man. He rapidly sighted in on another exposed soldier several feet to the left of the fallen squad leader. Before the soldier could react to the gruesome death that had just transpired a few feet away, Daniel fired again, hitting him center of mass and sending him sprawling into the dirt. The next target he found through his ACOG scope took multiple hits to the upper torso before Daniel could squeeze off a shot.

"Quit hogging shots," Daniel said, as a half-dozen bullets slammed into the concrete corner, spraying them with sharp fragments.

"Quit running your suck hole and keep shooting," Farrington replied, without the slightest hint of comedy.

He sighted along the low wall that had housed several shooters before the Hellfire missile impact and found the top of a head several meters down from the smoldering gap caused by a single AGM-114 Hellfire. The head stayed low, bobbing slowly back and forth…barely visible through Daniel's scope. He took a deep breath and exhaled, steadying the scope's red targeting arrow just a hair above the head. He didn't consciously squeeze the trigger. His right index finger had instinctively and uniformly removed nearly all of the trigger's pressure as the red arrow floated where Daniel thought he should take the shot. He never registered the command to continue squeezing the trigger, it just happened as naturally as taking a breath. The 5.45mm bullet took less than a tenth of a second to cross the gap and missed the top of the wall by less than a half-inch, reaching the man's head unhindered. He saw the head rise quickly and drop out of view.

"Nice shot. That f*cker's been driving me crazy," Farrington said.

"More than welcome. Keep an eye on the situation. I need to figure out what the f*ck is going on around here," he said and took off for Leo, who had nearly stripped the corpse naked looking for signs or clues to indicate what they were facing.

Daniel made sure they were not exposed to any obvious enemy fire and kneeled down next to Leo.

"What do we have?"

"Russians. Standard special forces comm set. Hidden harness with spare magazines, frag grenades, pistol…suppressor. My best guess is regional Spetsnaz. Border response team maybe. Something like our Rangers. Probably assigned to the Western Siberian Military District based out of Novosibirsk a few hundred miles from here. Why would the Russians put a reinforced platoon of special forces guys on our asses?"

"That's another million dollar question. Anything else you can tell me?"

"Not really, though I'd like to know how they got here. By my rough estimate, we're looking at thirty plus guys…"

"Hold on, Leo…f*ck, do you hear that?"

Amidst the sharp reports of sporadic rifle fire, Daniel heard a deep rhythmic sound that made him shudder. He grabbed the bloodied pair of binoculars next to the dead Russian and wiped the lenses enough to see through the red smeared glass. Scanning the horizon, east to north, he spotted them almost due north. Three helicopters coming in low.

"Motherf*cker! Grab an RPG if you can find one and take cover," he said and ran toward Dusty, who sat against the same wall next to Farrington, holding the satellite phone with a grin on his face.

"What is it?" Leo yelled at him as he ran.

"Helicopters!" he said, without looking back.

"Are you f*cking kidding me? Shit," Leo said and started scrambling toward more of the dead bodies.

Petrovich reached Dusty, whose grin had faded at Daniel's single word.

"Is that Berg?"

"Yeah…they had some technical difficulties. He—"

Daniel swiped the phone from his hands. "Nice to finally hear your voice."

"Look, you have no idea what I've gone through to put that drone over your head, and from what I can tell—"

"I'll thank you later…right now we have a bigger problem. I have three helicopters headed my way. We were hit by Russians, so I assume this is their ride back over the border."

The satellite phone fell silent for several seconds, and Daniel raised the binoculars to examine the three ugly objects growing on the northern horizon, racing toward the village at 150 miles per hour.

"You still there? Or are we experiencing technical difficulties again?" Daniel said, shifting his gaze to Farrington. "Rich, we need to get across the street and find some RPGs. Mix in a little closer with their ground forces and make it hard for those helicopters to engage. What do we have left over there?" he said, with the satellite phone still jammed to his ear.

"Five or six guys. Maybe a few more. Dug in pretty well. They're not going anywhere," Farrington said and snapped off three shots.

"Scratch one more," Farrington added.

"Berg! You there? F*ck, this guy is killing me."

Berg's voice came back through the phone.

"Daniel, the Predator drone has no remaining ordnance. They can remain on station to—"

"Watch us get killed? What do we have coming our way? They're coming in too low for me to get an ID," Daniel replied.

Leo came into view around the corner of one of the houses with an RPG launcher and a backpack containing three shaped charge warheads. Farrington watched the remaining Spetsnaz troops and the open roadway through the village to ensure there would be no surprises from that direction.

"We're in business!" Leo yelled, and Daniel gave him a "thumbs up," anxiously waiting for Berg's reply.

"Predator control has two 'Hip' Mi-8 transport helicopters…and one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter," Berg continued, his voice trailing off with the sound of dread.

"Say again, last helicopter type," returned Daniel, reverting to formal military communications protocol.

"Mi-28 Havoc. One minute outbound…hold on, Daniel, I still might be able to help you out. I need to work on something…"

Petrovich threw the phone back at Dusty, who looked despondent, as the deep, ominous pounding sounds of heavy rotor blades grew louder.

"Stay close to me and put that phone in my ear the second he comes back on the line," he said, then turned to the rest of the team assembled behind the building.

"We need to get as close to their perimeter as possible. We have a Havoc inbound…no time for a plan. Move fast, shoot, use grenades. Don't drop the RPG," he said and smiled at Leo.

"Yeah, f*ck you too," Leo responded with a grin, and they sprinted across the street.



**



Technical Sergeant Juan Salazar listened to Karl Berg's voice over the secure communications speaker while shaking his head slowly. He made eye contact with Staff Sergeant Kelly McIntyre and half mouthed-half whispered to her.

"No. No. This is f*cking out of control."

McIntyre watched her screens intently, simultaneously zooming in on the three helicopters and the "friendlies" now dashing across the road.

"Friendlies just repositioned to western side of the village," she added to the conversation between Major Adler and Berg.

"Mr. Berg, with all due respect, you better have our asses covered on this," Hesselman said.

"Major, no need to hide something that never happened…and let me reiterate for everyone at your station. This never f*cking happened. Get this done, Major. They're running out of time."

Major Hesselman moved the joystick left until his camera view showed three helicopters in formation, moving south down the road toward Kaynar. He increased the throttle setting, and the Predator drone accelerated into a dive exceeding the unmanned vehicle's advertised maximum speed of 135 miles per hour.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Salazar muttered.

Kelly McIntyre stared at her main screen with utter amazement as the "Havoc" filled the grainy scene on the monitor. No matter how fast she zoomed out, the Russian helicopter continued to grow until the screen went dead.

"Scratch one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter," she said and glanced at Salazar, who looked at her like a disapproving mother, with folded arms and a slowly shaking head.



**



The first salvo of 30mm cannon fire from the Havoc tore through the buildings they had just passed like paper. Unfortunately, their CIA liaison chose to invest in the deceptive safety of the first building that they encountered after crossing the open road. Daniel had reached out to pull him along, but the terrified agent crouched solidly against the concrete wall. Petrovich had no intention of slowing down long enough to try and physically dislodge him. Just as Petrovich cleared the structure, the house exploded from the near simultaneous impact of several dozen high velocity projectiles, and Dusty disappeared in the maelstrom of concrete chunks and wooden splinters.

Another burst of cannon fire tore into a house ahead of the team, shattering the structure and indicating to him that the Havoc gunner had temporarily lost track of them. They were split between two closely bunched houses, in groups of two. Leo and Farrington were a few houses ahead, loading the RPG. He knew there was little hope of taking this helicopter down. He figured it was a few hundred yards away, well out of reliable RPG range. The Havoc's targeting system rivaled the U.S. Army's AH-64 Apaches, and their little game of hide and seek in the village wouldn't last much longer.

Even if Leo managed to miraculously land a clean shot with the RPG, Petrovich wasn't convinced the rocket would have any effect. The Havoc was heavily armored like the Apache, a virtual warhorse in the sky. Their only hope was to hide close to the Spetsnaz and pray the Havoc crew didn't use rockets. He wasn't very hopeful. With the 30mm cannon providing suppressive fire, they couldn't effectively keep the Spetsnaz in place, and without the Spetsnaz nearby…they'd be rocket fodder. He raised his right hand and delivered a potentially suicidal hand signal to Farrington.

A devastating explosion filled Daniel's ears, and for a split second, he thought the Havoc crew had fired a salvo of 127mm rockets. Instinctively, they all flattened against the ground, but when the rockets didn't instantly tear through any of the structures around them, they executed Daniel's silent order. All of them burst forward from their cover, sprinting between houses in the direction of the massive detonation.

When Petrovich rounded the corner, he grinned wickedly as the burning Havoc banked sharply left and plummeted rapidly out of sight. Before he could visually reacquire the mortally damaged attack helicopter, a second, larger explosion sent another shockwave through the village, momentarily heating the cold Siberian air and sending burning metal fragments deep amidst the buildings. No one in Daniel's team said a word, as they raced to find new firing positions to engage whatever might be left of the Russian force.

Upon reaching the northernmost house several seconds later, he saw two flaming metal wrecks twisted together on a flat area of land barely fifty meters from the edge of the village. The out of control Havoc apparently veered directly into the Mi-8 transport helicopter that had landed to extract the remaining Russian ground forces, exploding both fuel tanks.

The second Mi-8 helicopter hovered where the Havoc had been moments ago, fighting the sudden air flow instability caused by the drastic temperature fluctuations radiated from the conflagration of aviation fuel to its immediate right. Leo wasted no time pushing Daniel out of the way and leaned against the house to steady the RPG launcher. He took a few seconds to gauge the distance to the wavering helicopter and fired the rocket without warning. The rocket's explosive booster charge caused a crunching overpressure among the group, bathing them in a toxic cloud of grayish dust dislodged from the ground.

Petrovich saw the rocket motor engage and propel the 93mm warhead toward the Mi-8's cockpit. The helicopter spun at the last moment possible, causing the rocket to miss the cockpit and detonate against the rear cargo hatch area. His team immediately retreated behind the two closest houses and reloaded the RPG, unsure if the Mi-8's pilot would commence a gun run against them. Though the helicopter didn't carry anything as sophisticated as the 30mm "chain gun" found on the Havoc, nobody on the team wanted to stick around to test the skills of a Special Operations helicopter pilot.

He heard the heavy whining sound of turbo-shaft engines and risked a look at the helicopter. He saw the Mi-8 headed due north at high speed, trailing thick black smoke over the road. When the helicopter passed their own smoking SUV and didn't alter course, he knew they were safe for the moment.

"It's headed north. Nice shot," he said and something caught his immediate attention.

Four Spetsnaz soldiers crouched in the open, watching the helicopter abandon them. Daniel raised his rifle and dropped one of them with a headshot. The remaining three commandos raised their hands as the four Black Flag operatives rapidly fanned out to approach them.

"I want solid intel out of these guys. Kill one if you need to motivate them to talk. I need to see if the satellite phone still works," he said.

Daniel sprinted back through the village and found the wrecked mess of concrete chunks and wooden pylons that served as Dusty's ill-conceived cover from 30mm cannon fire. The repeated bursts had leveled the house, and he struggled to tear the debris clear of a boot that he spotted in the monochromatic heap of shoddy building materials. He lifted a sizable chunk of concrete off the boot, exposing the top of the shin, which was no longer connected to a body. Sheared off below the knee, a jagged piece of bone protruded from the dust caked end of the outer limb. He didn't look forward to digging through the rest of this pile.

A single gunshot echoed through the village, and Daniel wondered exactly how long Farrington had tried to get information before blowing one of their heads off. It really didn't matter, none of those soldiers would leave here alive, and his team needed to be back on the road immediately, though he wasn't sure what they would use for transportation. He kept digging through the rubble, finding a severed hand and what looked like intestines. The phone suddenly rang, and Daniel realized it sat ten feet away near the road. Dusty's last act must have been to toss the phone out of the carnage exploding around him.

He jogged to the phone, and pressed "receive."

"Did my little gift arrive?" the familiar voice said.

"I can't imagine anyone will be happy about losing that drone," Daniel replied.

"A simple thank you would suffice."

"I'll thank you over coffee, once you get us the f*ck out of here."

"The Predator control team said there were a few vehicles located at the southernmost point of the village. Most, if not all of Kaynar's inhabitants appear to be herded into an area west of the village, in a depression over a small rise. One hundred plus bodies. They had full thermal signatures, and control saw plenty of movement among the group. It looks like they're all alive," Berg said.

"I don't think the Russians had enough time to properly dispose of the villagers, and I'm pretty sure they didn't expect us to survive the IED blast. The helicopters didn't approach in any sort of attack formation. I think they cruised in low to pick up the Spetsnaz, operating under strict radio silence. It's the only explanation."

"What happened to the helicopters?"

"The Havoc crashed into one of the transport helicopters thanks to your Kamikaze drone. We hit the other with an RPG, and it hauled ass back to Russia. This is f*cked, Karl. Something doesn't add up here."

"The picture is still developing, but we might have another lead and a possible explanation for the Russian response. I need to send your team north of St. Petersburg to investigate some bizarre rumors that our signals intelligence team has processed. Nearly the entire Kola Peninsula has gone dark, and we've detected a massive military deployment to the area. Nothing can get through the highway running between Murmansk and Kandalaksha. Russian military has it shut down tight. The only major city along that route is an industrial dump called Monchegorsk, and there might be a link. We have nobody on the ground in the vicinity, and your team has the special talents needed to find a way in."

"Sounds like fun. I assume Sanderson has signed off on this one too?"

"You can give him a call. We've already spoken. You need to get the hell out of there before the Russians decide to carpet bomb that town. Based on this new information and the fact that they have a small army dead within Kazakhstan borders, I wouldn't make any long term investments into the future of Kaynar."

"We'll grab a vehicle and continue to Astana. Can you run any diplomatic interference if we are picked up by Kazakh forces?"

"Negative. You need to reach the airport terminal as originally planned. A U.S. military transport will start moving you toward your next destination. I need to work on an infiltration plan and equipment drop for your team, so if you don't mind, I'm going to let you go. Bring Mr. Bremer with you on the plane. He's compromised in Kazakhstan."

"Dusty didn't make it. Neither did Andrei."

"Shit," he said and paused, "stuff their bodies in the trunk of whatever you find. I'll have someone take care of it from the airport. How bad are the bodies?"

"We'll have to bag up Dusty. He did pretty well under the circumstances," Daniel said.

Two more rifle shots filled the air, causing Daniel to look around.

"We're on the move. I'll call once we're on the road." The Black Flag operatives appeared between two of the buildings, jogging toward Daniel. Farrington shook his head as they approached.

"They didn't know anything useful. They were roused from their barracks and loaded onto the helicopters for an anti-terrorist operation. What happened to Dusty?"

"Dead. We need to bag up as much of him as possible," Petrovich said.

"With what? The truck is gone," Sergei said, pointing at the burning metal hulk down the road.

"He looks like the rest of them. We don't have time to f*ck around with this," Farrington said.

"Fine, but we need to bring Andrei with us or throw his corpse in with the rest of them," Daniel countered.

"We toss both of them in one of the fires. Last thing we need on the road is a corpse in the trunk," Farrington said, and they all nodded in agreement.

"Ditch the rifles. Pistols only from this point forward. We need to reach Astana and put this as far behind us as possible. Berg says we'll find vehicles at the southern edge of the village…and since you learned the finer skills of hotwiring cars, the honor is all yours," he said and slapped Farrington on the back.

"Does Berg have any idea why the Russians would take this kind of risk to kill us?" Leo asked.

"He's sending us up near Murmansk to investigate a possible link and explanation. If he knows, he didn't feel like sharing. Let's get moving," Daniel said.

He tasked Leo and Sergei to move Andrei's body to the burning wreckage while he dug around for Dusty's body parts.