Читать книгу Oceans Of Fire - Don Pendleton - Страница 11

“Wake up, Sunshine.”

Calvin James was already awake. He had sensed the door of his room opening and without opening his eyes had known it was Forbes by the big man’s footfalls and the power of his aftershave. Some of James’s limbs were pinned by the sleeping Bermet, but beneath his pillow his right hand was curled around his Heckler & Koch .45. “Morning.”

“Look at you.” Forbes stared down in mock disapproval at the tangle of bodies on the bed and the champagne bottles strewed about. The big man tsked and shook his head. “You’re a disgrace to the race.”

James began to disentangle himself from Bermet. “When you see a sister here in Tajikistan, you let me know. Until then…”

“When in Rome.” Forbes grinned and handed him a mug. The coffee was Turkish, strong enough to strip paint and heavily laced with sugar and cardamom. James sighed as he sipped the coffee. “This place does have amenities.”

“It’s good to a big fish in a small pond,” Forbes agreed.

“Yeah.” James stood. “But I want to be a big fish in a big pond.”

“Oh, yeah?” Forbes looked at him measuringly. “Well, first things first. We got a job to do. Get dressed. Bring your bag. Follow me.”

“How soon till we leave?”

“You have twenty minutes.”

James got up and went to the bathroom. He ran water and then pressed his ear to the door. He could hear Forbes speaking very quietly and Bermet answering. She was being debriefed. She had gone through his bag and dresser drawers the first night. One look at his shaving kit told him that her nocturnal trip to the bathroom had included riffling his few belongings by the sink. Forbes had already checked James and his belongings for bugs, telling him he was on “probation,” but the big man was taking no chances. James suspected his room was bugged. He couldn’t afford to be caught on the phone or sending smoke signals from the roof.

But he had the collected minds of Stony Man Farm on his side.

James took out his toothpaste and squeezed. About five inches of minty-fresh, tartar-control dentifrice squeezed out and suddenly the tube ribboned forth clear gel. He stuck his arm out of the small bathroom window and began crudely writing on the side of the casino with infrared luminescent gel.

NUKES HERE

DPT 2O MIN

DST KABUL

James shucked himself into the clothes hanging on the door hanger. He took the gel and drew an invisible circle on the back of his leather jacket, then brushed his teeth and shaved. When he came, Bermet was gone. His bag was already packed and a second gym bag contained the Vikhr compact assault rifle and ammo. Forbes sat on the bed smoking a cigar and watching news on the casino cable. James strapped on his pistol and his knife. “Let’s do it.”

Forbes rolled to his feet. “Follow me.”

They took a private elevator down to a private garage. Sitting incongruously among the limousines, sports cars and luxury sedans were three battered-looking Land Cruisers, their engines running. Zhol and Sharkov stood waiting, surrounded by a full squad of hardmen. It was bitterly cold. You could see the men’s breath in the unheated garage. Beneath their bulky jackets the hardguys were clearly wearing armor and each had a gym bag like James’s by his feet. Zhol smiled and rolled back a calfskin glove to glance at his Rolex watch. One satanic eyebrow rose in question.

“Sorry we’re late, Mr. Zhol.”

Zhol beckoned James over. “Mr. James.” He nodded at one of his men, who raised the hatchback of the center vehicle. The Phoenix Force commando gazed at the cargo. In the back bed of the SUV were two suitcase-size metal casings painted in Russian military gray-green. Each was wrapped in military webbing with a pair of padded straps so that the device could be carried like a backpack. “Do you know what those are?”

James scrutinized the casings. “Clay told me we were transporting technology. Never saw a security case like that before, but it looks like military security and tamper-proofed.”

“Indeed. And?”

“In the U.S. we liked to use thermite in security cases to burn the contents if someone messed with them. Russian military always preferred high-explosive charges. They like to kill the thief as well as destroy the contents.” James eyed the case warily. “My bet is if someone tries to get inside that case it’ll blow.

An enigmatic smile passed across Zhol’s face. “Yes, Mr. James. If someone tampers with those cases, they will blow.”

Sharkov nodded, smiling at the joke. “We do not want those falling into wrong hands, Mr. James.”

“No,” James agreed earnestly, “we don’t.”

Forbes’s cell phone rang. He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Guten morgen.” Forbes shook his head. “Nien, keine Probleme, kein Problem an allen.”

James yawned and looked at his watch. Forbes was speaking German. There were no problems, no problems at all.

“Alles ist auf Zeitplan.” Forbes smiled. “Ja danke. Auf wiedersehen, meine Herr.”

All was going according to plan.

Forbes clicked his phone shut. He put a hand on James’s shoulder and pointed at the two devices in the back of the truck. “Cal, you gotta guard that shit with your life.”

James spoke with utmost sincerity. “I will.”

Stony Man Farm

“THE PACKAGE IS MOVING.” McCarter’s voice spoke calmly over the sat link. “On schedule, just like Calvin said.”

On the giant screen the satellite image of the Silk Road Casino showed three vehicles pulling out of the private rear garage. It was a misty morning, not ideal for infrared viewing, but the vehicle in the middle was still glowing bright white where McCarter had marked it the day before. “Roger that, Phoenix One.” Barbara Price swung into her chair and adjusted her headset. “Showtime, people. Phoenix Flight, you are go.”

The pilot’s voice came back over the sound of rotors. “Gary and I are airborne. ETA downtown Dushanbe five minutes.”

“I’ve established the tail.” McCarter spoke over the sound of his motorcycle. A circle of bright white infrared luminescent paint marked his helmet like a halo. “They’re heading due south, as predicted. Looks like they’re going to take route A377 all the way down to the Afghan border.”

Aaron Kurtzman shook his head. “I’m just not buying a road trip all the way to Kabul, despite the vehicles David reported. The route is too long, too mountainous and there are far too many curious and unfriendly people with AK-47’s up in those hills. Zhol and Sharkov know they got hit up in the mountains once already, and by now they know Gotron Khan’s gone missing. They’re driving now to avoid the airport and any possible surprise inspection or ambush, but I’m betting after they leave the city they’re getting off the main route ASAP. For that matter, those are off-road vehicles. I think they’re going to go cross-country where a helicopter is going to pick them up.”

Price’s brow knitted. “These are Russian gangsters. They’re known for their sticky fingers. I doubt they’d leave behind three custom-made, Asbeck-armored VIP specials. You’re looking at over half a million dollars’ worth of rides.”

“You know, you’re both right.” Everyone in the War Room could almost hear Jack Grimaldi grinning behind the stick of his helicopter as things fell into his area of expertise. “Zhol owns construction companies, and this is Tajikistan. Ninety-nine percent of the country is mountain or desert, and the roads are so bad that almost any company that can afford it does their major hauling with helicopters rather than trucks. I’m betting Zhol has one or more Mi-26 Halos hot on the pad in some clearing outside the capital. The Halo’s the most powerful helicopter on Earth. It’s like a C-130 Hercules except with rotors. We’re talking large-cargo clamshell loading doors in the back and a maximum payload of 44,000 pounds plus.”

“Damn it.” Price watched the three-car caravan wend its way south through the early morning traffic. “They’ll just drive their SUVs inside the chopper and take off.”

“It’s worse than that.” Kurtzman stared into middle distance as he began to crunch all the angles. “Jack’s right. Zhol owns construction companies, so he probably has access to a fleet of helicopters. He knows he’s been hit already. He’ll be taking every precaution. If Zhol hasn’t factored in possible satellite surveillance, Forbes has. They’ll have multiple helicopters.”

“A shell game.” Price watched the satellite feed as Rafael Encizo and T. J. Hawkins pulled into traffic in a Russian Tarantula off-road vehicle marked with a broad circle of infrared luminescent paint on the hood. “And we can’t be sure which vehicle the nukes are in, or if they’ve been split up.”

“That’s right,” Kurtzman said. “We’re playing nuclear poker with a Navy SEAL. The best of the best.”

“Base, this is Phoenix Two,” Encizo reported. “We have the caravan in sight. Paralleling.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix Two,” Price said. “Bear?”

“We can’t afford to let these guys get out of the city, or even into a park or city square wide enough to land a helicopter.” Kurtzman nodded and hit his comm switch. “Phoenix One, this is Bear. Take them down. Take them down now.”

“AFFIRMATIVE, BASE.” McCarter was a hundred yards behind the convoy. He wore infrared goggles beneath the visor of his helmet and he could see the white light shining off the back of the middle car. “Phoenix Flight, what is your ETA?”

“I have you in sight, Phoenix One.”

“Phoenix Two?”

“We’re parallel on Western Avenue, Phoenix One,” Encizo replied.

“All units, I’m assuming the middle car has the VIPs and the packages. I want to avoid directly attacking it if possible. We take out the guard vehicles first then try to force the main target to stop. With luck, Calvin can work some magic from the inside. Phoenix Two and Three, come from behind. Phoenix Flight, drop Phoenix Four to plug any holes.”

All units came back “Affirmative.”

McCarter slid a Farm-modified RKJ-3M grenade from his jacket and pulled the pin. “Phoenix One, beginning attack run.” The Dakar 650 snarled and spit blue smoke as the Englishman gunned the engine. McCarter’s visor beaded with mist as he shot forward through traffic like an arrow.

The RKG-3M antitank grenade was a forty-year-old design, though still a clever one. The operator threw the grenade above the tank. A small parachute deployed from the handle so that the warhead deployed nosedown against the tank’s thin upper armor. It had been used effectively in the 1973 Arab Israeli War, but its main drawback then and now was that the operator had to run up and throw the grenade at the tank. Tanks and armored vehicles generally bristled with cannons and machine guns, and their crews tended to take a very dim view of anyone running toward them with cylindrical metal objects in their hands. Antitank grenades were considered at best a last-ditch defense if not open suicide. In the twenty-first century there were few modern tanks or APCs against which the RKG-3M would still be effective even if the operator could survive to get close enough.

An unsuspecting Toyota Land Cruiser in misty morning traffic was another kettle of fish.

McCarter flew past the rear and middle cars of the convoy. He lifted his thumb and the cotter lever pinged away in his wake. He whipped in front of the lead vehicle, took a moment to match its speed and tossed the grenade back over his shoulder.

Tires screamed on the wet asphalt as the lead driver stood on his brakes. McCarter had counted on that. The grenade bounced off the windshield and landed nosedown on the hood of the vehicle.

The magnetic ring that had been welded around the edge of the cylinder-shaped grenade clacked onto the metal hood, and the parachute collapsed around the throwing handle as the grenade locked in place.

McCarter had five seconds of fuse time to get out of the ten-meter secondary fragmentation radius. The BMW Dakar screamed into the red line as the grenade detonated behind it. The copper forcing cone inside the grenade shaped the detonating 567 grams of TNT and RDX high explosive into a highly condensed jet of superheated gas and fire.

The fire shot out the wheel wells like a rocket in takeoff, and the SUV lifted off its front tires. German engineering was nothing if not efficient. The designers at Asbeck knew they couldn’t make an SUV that could withstand shaped-charge attacks, but they had worked to minimize the damage and injury to passengers. The armored box around the engine channeled the blast up and down, and kept grenade and engine fragments from ripping through the passenger compartment. Halon fire-suppression units blasted out the burning oil and fuel, and hissed against the molten metal.

The stricken SUV slammed down on the molten remains of its run-flat tires.

McCarter whipped his motorcycle around in a screaming 180-degree halt. His 10 mm Parker-Hale Personal Defensive Weapon ripped free of the Velcro holding it in its shoulder holster. He snapped the folding stock into position and shouldered the weapon as all four doors of the armored Land Cruiser flung open at once.

The red dot of McCarter’s reflex sight was a glowing white blob through his infrared goggles. The white blob coincided with the forehead of the driver, and McCarter squeezed the PDW’s trigger. Three 10 mm armor-piercing slugs opened the smuggler’s skull to the sky in a spray of brain and bone. McCarter raised his sights slightly as the driver collapsed and gunned for the man coming out of the driver’s side passenger door. The Briton’s first burst clipped the killer’s shoulder and spun him, the second took him in the side of the face and rippled his head into ruins.

McCarter stood and shot. The men who leaped out of the passenger doors died even as they tried to level their automatic weapons. “Lead vehicle down! Hostiles down! Phoenix Two, attack—!”

The Phoenix Force leader swung his weapon back to the driver’s door and exchanged fire with a fifth man who popped out spraying lead from a compact assault rifle. Sparks sprayed as McCarter’s weapon mangled in his hands and his head snapped back like he’d taken a punch from a heavyweight. The Russian shooter fell with a crushed skull.

“Phoenix One!” Grimaldi shouted across the radio.

The PDW had taken two hits, and its action was dented and held open in a permanent jam. It fell from McCarter’s nerveless fingers as he toppled back across his bike.

The Briton tasted blood in the back of his throat. He ripped his helmet free and drew his Browning Hi-Power pistol. The world spun as he tried to sit up, and he fell back again. The front of his motorcycle helmet had an inch-deep crater blasted in the forehead. The copper base of a bullet gleamed from the middle of the hole. Only the ballistic ceramic insert had saved his life from the armor-piercing round.

“Move!” Grimaldi roared.

McCarter rolled to his feet as the other two SUVs pulled around the smoldering lead vehicle. Their tires screamed on the wet asphalt as they caught sight of him and swerved inward. The rest of the caravan was swerving to crush McCarter beneath its wheels.

The Briton began to empty his Browning Hi-Power into the windshield of the left-hand vehicle. His pistol stood no chance of piercing the armored glass, but the bullets did spall and create spiderwebs of cracking in the upper glass layer. McCarter ran for the curb and his opponent swerved to take him. He leaped, arms outstretched, for the top of a parked ZIL sedan. His hands closed around the luggage rack as he heaved himself onto the roof. Metal screamed as the Land Cruiser sideswiped the ZIL. McCarter’s foot went numb as the SUV’s passenger window clipped his boot heel in passing and he was flung from his perch. He hit the sidewalk with bone-jarring force and rolled. He got to his feet and emptied the last four rounds of his pistol into the back of the second armored SUV in parting.

The driver spitefully ran over McCarter’s Dakar, crushing one of the motorcycle’s wheels and crumpling the front fork.

The Briton snarled in anger and limped back to the vehicle he had disabled. He took a compact assault rifle and a bandolier of ammo from one of the fallen gunmen as he roared into his mike, “Phoenix Flight! Cut them off!”

“Phoenix Flight in position!” Grimaldi replied. “Deploying Phoenix Four!”

Rotors beat the air as the pilot dropped his helicopter like a stone three blocks up the street. The little Russian Mi-34 Hermit was a civil aircraft Phoenix Force had acquired locally. Grimaldi held the Hermit a hundred feet over the intersection. Gary Manning fast-roped out of the cabin, falling toward oncoming traffic like a spider. Horns blared and brakes shrieked as Manning’s boots hit pavement and traffic parted like the Red Sea around the heavily armed man. Manning spun his weapon on its sling as his two targets screamed through the intersection one block down.

“Phoenix Four in position. Targets acquired.” The big Canadian shouldered his Barrett M-82 A-2 rifle. It was a huge rifle, more than five and a half feet long and weighing twenty-seven pounds. It used the same action as the Barrett “Light Fifty” heavy sniper rifle, but had been redesigned in bullpup configuration. Most of the weapon’s massive action was situated in the back of the gun rather than the middle, and passed over the operator’s shoulder.

McCarter dropped to one knee, holding the big Barrett over his shoulder like a rocket launcher. The two armored SUVs came on. One pulled ahead as Manning peered through the 3x infrared sight. He saw the halo of light eclipsed as the lead Land Cruiser pulled directly in front as a shield.

“This is Phoenix Four. I’m taking out lead vehicle.” Manning put his crosshairs on the grille of the oncoming SUV. The .50-caliber round had been designed in the latter days of WWI with the specification of being able to attack observation balloons, aircraft and the tanks of the day. It had defeated such targets with grotesque ease, and a hundred years later it was still the most powerful round that one man could reasonably operate in a weapon.

The Canadian master rifleman squeezed the trigger.

The huge .50-caliber round shot forth a four-foot blast of flame from the muzzle and Manning grimaced as the rubber recoil pad behind the magazine kicked him like a mule. Steam blasted out of the lead vehicle’s grille as the .50-caliber armor-piercing round punched through the armored box surrounding the engine. Manning yanked his muzzle down and fired again. The engine shrieked and clanked as the engine block cracked and the vehicle lost power.

Manning put his third shot through the driver’s side of the windshield.

The armored windshield cratered around the .50-caliber hole and the interior went red in a spray of arterial blood. The SUV fishtailed out of control as the dead driver collapsed against the wheel. The vehicle veered onto the wrong side of the road and rammed into a parked bread truck at forty miles per hour. The side of the panel van folded around the front of the armored car.

The bumper of the last SUV was aimed straight at Manning and appeared to have no intention of stopping. Shooting into the last vehicle wasn’t the preferred action. Calvin James was inside, along with two, ten-kiloton nuclear demolition charges. Sending armor-piercing bullets sailing through the car body or shaped charges sheeting the interior with superheated gas and molten metal was a last option.

The driver had no such reservations.

He accelerated straight for Manning where he knelt in the middle of the intersection. Manning dropped the big Barrett on its sling and clicked the brake on his repelling harness. “Phoenix Four requesting immediate extraction!”

“Extracting!” Grimaldi said.

The radial engine in the helicopter overhead roared into emergency war power. Manning’s harness cinched against him as the helicopter’s rotors hammered the sky and clawed for altitude. The Land Cruiser bore down on him like a juggernaut. Manning’s feet left the ground as the helicopter pounded straight up into the sky like an elevator.

The vehicle tore past less than a yard beneath Manning’s boots. “Phoenix Flight, Phoenix Four redeploying!”

“Affirmative, Phoenix Four!”

Manning released the brake and repelled to the ground, releasing the rope from his harness. “Phoenix Four deployed and clear!”

“Roger, Phoenix Four.” Grimaldi took his helicopter back above the rooftops and resumed the chase.

The doors of the crashed Land Cruiser flew open.

The big Barrett was too unwieldy for a close-range fire-fight. Manning shrugged out of the sling and drew his pistol. The Para-Ordinance P16-40 barked in his hands as he began double-tapping the enemy. The range was twenty-five yards and the big Canadian could see the bulge of body armor beneath their jackets. At that distance he could reliably put every shot into a dinner plate in rapid fire. His first double-tap shot away one hardguy’s jaw, and his second neatly put out another man’s eye and brain as he went for head shots.

Manning moved toward cover as men deployed from the opposite side of the Land Cruiser. He dived behind a white Sputnik 4×4 sedan and rolled up, slamming his pistol across the hood. The .40-caliber weapon barked twice, cracking the skull of one of the Russian hardmen behind the SUV. Manning dropped low as the other two men opened up, their compact assault rifles spewing flame like buzz saws in their hands.

“Shit!” The Phoenix Force commando flinched as bullets zinged straight through the car he was using for cover. He jammed himself as low as possible between the curb and the tires. The Sputnik shuddered above him as it was riddled by automatic fire. The bullets zipped through and blasted on into the hairdresser’s shop behind him. A bullet plucked at the shoulder of his jacket and sparks flashed inches over his eyes as the car body tore like cheesecloth. “Phoenix Four requesting immediate backup!”

“Phoenix Four, this is Phoenix One, I’m on your twelve!”

A man screamed as McCarter opened up from behind. Manning leaped to his feet as the remaining Russian dived over the hood of the Land Cruiser to avoid McCarter. Manning whipped up his pistol. His first two rounds hit the killer in the chest, standing him up and pushing him back against the vehicle’s fender. The Russian raised his rifle even as he took hits.

His forehead geysered jellied brain as McCarter’s bullet transversed his skull from behind. Manning holstered his pistol and sprinted forward, confiscating the dead man’s rifle and his bandolier of spare magazines.

McCarter came up at the run. “Phoenix Flight, sitrep!”

“We have third vehicle directly beneath us,” Grimaldi reported.

“Phoenix Two, what’s your position?”

“Parallel course,” Encizo replied.

“Step on it! Pull ahead three blocks and Phoenix Flight will vector you in.” Manning fell into step with McCarter, scooping up his Barrett .50 as they charged up the street. McCarter broke into a dead run. “Take them out.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix One.” McCarter could hear the roar of Encizo’s engine over the link as he accelerated. “Taking them down now.”