With O’Hare at her back, Rodriguez put her head around the corner a few inches, checking one last time that the corridor was still clear. She gripped her rifle tight, “God help us. Light it Lieutenant,” she whispered. Bunny flipped the switch.
Outside the service tunnel there was a rippling series of explosions. Rodriguez vaulted over the remains of the graphite barrels and doubled down the corridor, expecting to feel the punch of heavy rounds slamming into her body at any second, but she made it to the shattered blast door and together with O’Hare broke left, dropping onto one knee and looking for a target as O’Hare ran across the deck for the cover of the shooter’s chair blast deflector.
Rodriguez saw one Russian down, lying on his stomach about fifty feet away and crawling toward a safety barrier. She put four rounds into him and looked immediately for another target. Her eyes were met with a scene of devastation. The Pond looked like it had been hit by a landslide. Water had flooded the cave to just below the flight deck. Their command trailer and all of the crew accommodations had been crushed. A second Russian was crabbing backward on his butt and she fired at him, but missed and he rolled onto his feet and ran for the cover of the shattered command trailer, Bunny’s rifle fire chasing him all the way. Rodriguez noted he was wearing a Russian aviator’s uniform, but then incoming fire from somewhere on her right started hammering the wall behind her and she half stumbled, half dived for the relative protection of their last un-launched Fantom, still crouched on the catapult.
She saw two Russians another fifty feet away further up the ramp opposite the aircraft elevator door, spraying bullets toward her but not accurately — they were clearly still fighting the disorientation caused by Bunny’s flash-bangs. One of them was crouched behind cover, but the other was dazed and standing in the open. Rodriguez sighted on his chest, squeezing her trigger in short two round bursts. One of her bullets snapped the man’s head back and he fell, unmoving.
The other trooper wasn’t making the same mistake. He stayed behind the low safety barrier and his return fire slammed into the landing gear of the Fantom which was Rodriguez’ only cover. But O’Hare had him flanked from her position and seeing Rodriguez taking fire, she switched her aim from the fleeing aviator to the trooper up the ramp. It looked like at least one round from O’Hare hit home and he scuttled to his left trying to keep some of the safety barrier between him and O’Hare but that just exposed him to Rodriguez and she put two rounds into the barrier near his head.
He quickly decided his position was hopeless and threw his rifle away, holding his hands in the air.
“Surrender!” he yelled in English. “I surrender!”
Bondarev had put his arms over his head as the bright, deafening explosions rippled along the launch ramp wall. His vision flared, blurred and his ears were ringing at the noise from so many concussive blasts in such a small space. As he pulled himself up onto his haunches all he could see was a blur of movement in front of him and he staggered to his feet. The only option open to him seemed to be to run from the direction of the attack and he staggered away, seeing the crushed control room further up the launch ramp which seemed to offer the only hope of cover. Ricocheting bullets spattered around his heels as he weaved toward the wrecked trailer and then dove behind it.
Bullets hit the rock wall and metal around him, then suddenly the incoming fire stopped. He could hear at least two American rifles continue to bark, answered by the distinctive sound of at least one 39mm Vintorez as Borisov’s men fought back. He risked a peek around the corner of the trailer.
He saw one American crouched behind the landing gear of the Fantom, another in the catapult shooter’s pit. The wounded man he had been bandaging lay on the flight deck, unmoving. As was one of the troopers that had been watching the second blast door. From his slightly elevated position, Bondarev could see a large pool of blood around the man’s head. The other Spetsnaz up by the bridge was still returning fire, and the Americans both concentrated their fire on him next.
Bondarev didn’t have a clean line of sight to the two Americans from his position and even if he’d wanted to get into the fight, his little Makarov would have been near useless against assault rifles. The two Americans who had broken out of their barricaded defensive position were in cover, and Bondarev was both too far away, and too damn smart to start taking pot-shots at them. He crouched back behind the crushed remains of the former command trailer, and watched. As though to confirm his own thinking, one of the Americans spun suddenly and sent a few rounds his way which sent him ducking even lower.
Caught in a crossfire, trading shots with the two Americans, it didn’t take long for the remaining Spetsnaz trooper up on the bridge to decide his position was hopeless, and Bondarev found it hard to imagine, with all the fire that had been directed at him, that he hadn’t been wounded. Sure enough, after a couple of seconds without returning fire, he put an arm in the air, and Bondarev heard him yell in English, “Surrender!” as he threw his rifle away from him.
“Drop your weapons!” the Americans yelled back.
The man stood up, holding his sidearm out by the trigger guard and the bag which Bondarev recognized as holding demolition charges in the air over his head. Slowly, he began walking — limping in fact — back down the bridge toward the Americans at the end of the deck.
“I surrender!” the trooper yelled again in English.
“Drop… your… weapons,” the Americans yelled again. Why didn’t the Spetsnaz drop his sidearm and the backpack? Did he know Bondarev was still there? Was he expecting him to do something?
As the man approached the two Americans with his pistol and backpack held high above his head he appeared to stumble and dropped the pack. It was a distraction. Lowering his sidearm quickly he squeezed off two shots at each of the Americans. One dropped. The other returned fire with cold precision. Three flowers of blood appeared on the man’s chest and he fell to his knees, then onto his face.
After so much violence, it was suddenly very quiet inside the cavern.
“Bunny!” yelled the voice from behind the Fantom, “Talk to me!”
A grunt came from behind the blast deflector and the American who had been hit rose to one knee and rested their rifle on the barrier, pointed at Bondarev, “Still here Boss.”
Women?
“You!” the first voice called. “By the trailer. Throw your weapons in the water, hands in the air, and approach.”
Bondarev shrunk back behind the wrecked trailer. “Why should I?” he called back. “You will shoot me like you shot him.”
“So don’t be as dumb as him,” the woman said. “Drop all your weapons, hands in the air, nice and empty, and move this way. O’Hare, cover!”
Bondarev watched as the American by the Fantom ran over to the dead Spetsnaz, grabbed his rifle and took grenades from a pouch on his belt, then moved to a new position back inside the doorway of the blasted corridor so that Bondarev would be flanked.
Yes, it was true. He was not as dumb. But with a copter and another squad of Spetsnaz still on top of the island, able to call in an entire airborne brigade to rescue him, he wasn’t too worried about being taken prisoner either.