The Sniper and the Wolf (24 page)

62

THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS

“I think we should make a stand here,” Gil said as he and Dragunov stopped to catch their wind. “Hit ’em hard with grenades, then haul ass again before they can maneuver to outflank us. That’ll slow their pursuit and get ’em off our ass.”

“Maybe, but we give up our lead if we do that.” Dragunov was holding his wounded groin, resting with one arm against a tree. It was almost light enough to see without night vision.

“I know, but they’re gonna catch us anyhow. This way we can hit ’em on our terms one last time before it gets light. We need to kill some of these fuckers before we enter that valley. If those guys catch us out there in the open, we’re fucked.”

“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 de
stroyed—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

THE PENTAGON

“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.”

Couture stepped up to the screen, tapping Kovalenko’s image. “Not if
this
son of a bitch has anything to say about it.”

“I can’t argue with that, Bill. I think we’re about to see a real-life sniper duel.”

Couture turned to the air force liaison. “Major, get a tight shot of the rifle this man is carrying, and do a screen capture. Then run it past G2—see if they can’t figure out what that damn thing is.” “G2” was military slang for intelligence.

The president put down the phone and returned to his chair. “The Georgian ambassador is still trying to get his government on board, but it’s not looking good. Has Pope called back?”

Couture shook his head.

“Want me to give him a call, sir?” Brooks asked.

“No,” the president said. “He’d call if he had anything. There’s no point in interrupting him.”

Couture smiled inwardly, recalling how distrustful they all had once been of the new CIA director.

The images of seven men appeared at the bottom edge of the screen, hiking north along the bank of a wide mountain stream that cut the valley for which Gil and Dragunov were bound.

“Tighten that up, Major.”

The seven looked to be Chechen fighters, heavily loaded with packs, machine guns, and RPGs. They were walking slowly—plodding along—and seemed to have hiked in from a long way off.

“Insurgents,” Brooks muttered. “Probably coming up from Azerbaijan.”

Couture lit a cigarette and exhaled with a sigh. “Get ready for another gunfight, gentlemen.” He clicked the Zippo’s lid closed and tucked it into his pocket, muttering to himself, “Okay, Gil. Don’t get sloppy now.”

64

THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS

Gil and Dragunov left the cover of the forest to find the early morning sun shining on their faces. The open valley stretched away to the east, with a shallow mountain stream running through the middle of it toward the south. Ice Age boulders littered the landscape, left behind by receding glaciers ten thousand years earlier. Squat, thick hardwoods dotted the expanse, free to expand their limbs outward instead of having to race for the sky in competition for the sun. Beyond the valley, perhaps a thousand yards, the forest began again, but Gil knew the battle would be decided here. In the valley.

They kept moving, Gil’s gaze scanning the terrain for the place he would set up with his rifle.

“There,” he said, pointing beyond the stream and up the slope to the east. “See those rocks?”

“A textbook position,” Dragunov said.

Gil looked at him. “Which is exactly why we can’t set up there.”

“Right.”

They moved fast down the slope, rounded a copse of trees at the edge of the stream, and came face-to-face with a patrol of seven bearded Chechens.

Everyone froze.

The Chechens were visibly weary from their trek. Six of them stood looking slack jawed, rifles slung, but one of them held his AK-47 by the foregrip in his left hand, his wild eyes scanning the slope behind Gil and Dragunov to see if they were alone.

Everyone knew there was going to be a shoot-out, but neither side knew exactly what it was up against.

“Long walk?” Dragunov asked in Russian.

The man with the AK in his hand nodded.
“Da.”

“Looking for Dokka Umarov?”

The man nodded again.

“He’s dead,” Dragunov said. “What’s left of his force has surrendered to the Spetsnaz. There’s no reason for you men to be caught up in it. You should go back to where you came from.”

One of the others started to unsling his rifle, but Gil leveled his AN-94 and locked eyes.
“Nyet.”

The Chechen narrowed his gaze but took his hand from the rifle strap.

“The others don’t speak Russian,” Dragunov said in English. “Ready yourself. I’ll take the leader.”

Hearing Dragunov speaking English threw the Chechen off, but before he could make heads or tails of it, shots rang out from the edge of the forest, and his friends grabbed for their weapons.

Gil let loose with the AN-94, cutting two of them in half at close range.

Dragunov shot the man with the AK, but the remaining four got their weapons loose. He leapt among them, leveling one with a butt stroke to the jaw. Another spun around and whacked him in the back of the helmet with his AK-47, causing him to stumble toward the stream.

A pair of Chechens danced away into the trees, one of them
firing wildly from the hip and hitting Gil on his armor. The other tossed a grenade onto the creek-side shale and dove for cover.

The grenade went off on impact, and Gil was thrown into the water, his legs and one of his arms taking shrapnel and bits of shale. Dragunov was blown over and landed on his butt with a splash, firing a 40 mm grenade into the copse of trees.

Dragunov’s aggressor was blown off his feet as well, and he too landed in the water, jumping up and beating Dragunov over the head with a rock, smashing the NVGs still clipped to his helmet.

Gil struggled to rise, his brains scrambled by the blast. He fell over in the water and sighted down the barrel of the AN-94, squeezing off the last two rounds in the magazine and shooting Dragunov’s attacker.

With bullets striking the water around him, Dragunov got to his knees, unslinging the SVD sniper rifle from his back and setting up the bipod mounted just forward of the ten-round magazine. He lay belly-down with his eye to the scope, preparing to engage a mob of ten Chechens charging downhill. He shot the leader just above the groin.

Umarov’s nephew Lom dropped his rifle and grabbed his gut as he collapsed, summersaulting to a stop.

Dragunov squeezed off another round, hitting his second target in the chest. He fired twice more, shattering a pelvis and blowing away the side of another’s head. His fifth shot shattered a femur; his sixth took off most a shoulder. The four remaining Chechens skidded to a halt and turned tail back toward the tree line. Dragunov shot the seventh in the tail bone, and the remaining three he dead-centered between the shoulder blades.

He slung the empty rifle and grabbed Gil up out of the water. “Can you run?”

“Frog’s asshole watertight?” Gil muttered, stumbling on the slippery rocks.

Dragunov didn’t know what that meant, but Gil was walking, and that was all that mattered. There was a burst of fire from the copse of trees where he had fired the grenade. He grabbed Gil’s rifle
from his hands, flicking it toward the trees, and fired another grenade to finish the wounded Chechen.

They ran for the far side of the valley, Gil’s mind clearing slowly on the way, and made it to another patch of trees on the upward slope. The two of them sorted themselves out under cover and reloaded their weapons.

“How are your wounds?” Dragunov asked.

Gil gazed at him and shrugged.

Dragunov saw that his eyes were glassed over, the pupils dilated, and reached for his aid kit. “You’re concussed.” He dug out a dextroamphetamine capsule and a cigarette. “Swallow that and smoke this.”

Gil downed the capsule with a swallow from his water tube and poked the cigarette between his lips. “I’m not exactly sure this is how you’re supposed to treat a concussion, Ivan.”

“Too bad,” Dragunov said. “We’re going up against Kovalenko, and you need to clear your head.”

Gil threw the cigarette down after the first few drags. “That’s not helping.”

“The amphetamine will take effect within three minutes.”

“Feelin’ it already,” Gil muttered, some of his focus beginning to return. “Gotta love the go pills.”

“There are more in your aid kit if anything happens to me,” Dragunov muttered, getting to his feet. “Now let’s move. We have to displace before they can zero our position.”

He took one step and flew back against a tree, letting out a gust of air as though he’d been kicked in the chest by a kangaroo and crumpled to the ground.

Gil sprang forward, pulling him to cover behind a large rock and ripping open his jacket to see the bullet had penetrated the ceramic breast plate. He tore out the plate and checked behind it to see that the projectile had fragmented and that the Kevlar had stopped the fragments, as the system had been designed.

“Wake up!” Gil smacked his face. “Wake up!”

Dragunov opened his eyes. “Stop hitting me.”

“You’re dead, baby!”

The Russian’s eyes grew wide, and he grabbed his chest. “What does that mean?”

Gil sat him up with a grin. “It means our Chechen friend out there thinks he just killed you.”