Chavez had been leapfrogging through the trees, moving to his right now, away from Branyon, trying to draw attention and fire from the restrained man lying in the little gulley. Chavez would move only three or four steps at a time, then drop flat, roll behind some sort of cover, and pop out to aim. The forest was thick enough that he could not just reach his weapon back around toward the shack and the trucks and spray — the bullets would just hit other trees. Instead, he picked his targets, using muzzle flashes to guide him, then he’d squeeze off three or four rounds in the direction of the flashes. He knew he was expelling ammunition too fast for the number of attackers, but by creating consistent muzzle flashes in a number of different locations in these woods, he felt he could give the men the impression they were facing more opposition, and this might help encourage them to keep their heads down and slow their return fire.
He made one more bound to the right, slid on the ground, and aimed toward the muzzle flashes in the distance. He squeezed the trigger of the AK-47, and the weapon did not fire.
He was out of ammo.
Just then Chavez heard a noise in the trees on his right. He reached down to the Glock 17 jammed in his jeans and drew it, but before he could level it at the approaching sound he heard someone call out to him.
“Hold fire, brother! It’s me.”
Caruso slid up next to him in the thick mud and wet, matted leaves. He was holding his pistol in his hand as well. “You hit?”
“I’m good, but these bastards sure can shoot.”
Just then a massive chunk of pine bark blew off the trunk three feet above Caruso’s head. Both men ducked lower.
“No shit,” Caruso said. “We’ve thinned the herd. I think there are four or five left. Have you seen the CoS?”
“Yeah. Down in a gulley just off the road. Alive, the last time I saw him.”
“What do you want to do?” Dom asked.
Chavez didn’t hesitate. He pulled the key fob out of his pocket and put it in Caruso’s hand. “You’re faster, I shoot better.”
“So?”
“I’m going for Branyon, you’re going for the truck. Turn the lights off and roll up to fifty yards from the cabin. I’ll be there with Branyon… or neither of us are coming. If you don’t see us when you get there, take off and don’t look back.”
Dom just said, “Sure I will,” and he began to run through the trees back in the direction of the Land Cruiser.
Chavez had no confidence Caruso would just leave if Chavez and Branyon didn’t show up at the rally point. No, Caruso would fight until his last breath to save his teammate and the CoS.
Chavez reloaded the Glock, leapt to his feet, and began leapfrogging through the trees back in the direction of Pete Branyon.
Branyon struggled out of the ditch with his arms secured behind his back during a lull in the shooting, then rolled into the trees on his right. He was fifty feet away from where he’d heard the last gunfire behind him at the fence, which wasn’t far at all, but at least he felt like the way forward was clear of gunmen.
Just as he stood to run, constrained by the bindings on his wrists behind his back, he heard a new volley of fire, coming from multiple rifles, all behind him.
He decided to drop in his run, but he had to do this with care with his hands behind his back. Just as he began to lower down, he heard the banging and ripping sounds of bullets tearing into the trees around him.
He fell to his knees and pitched himself forward. Then he felt an incredible blow to his right shoulder — so hard it spun him around and he landed on his back on the wet ground.
It took a moment to realize he’d been shot, but when he did he found himself surprisingly calm about it. He just lay there, staring into the black above, feeling the rain on his face, and waiting for the pain to grow right where he’d felt the dull blow.
But there was no pain.
He heard new gunfire now, closer, on the other side. Seconds later he saw the flashes of light as someone stood over him, shooting. He couldn’t make out the image, the light had blinded him, but he felt spent cartridges bouncing off his chest, and he wondered why it was he couldn’t feel the bullets tearing into his body.
What he did feel now, however, was a hand, grabbing him by his injured shoulder. Suddenly an electric pain came from nowhere, blinding him, as he was lifted off the ground by someone grabbing him at his wound.
He found himself on his feet now. Someone was pulling him backward for a moment, coaxing him on, and all the while the gunfire continued from the pistol in the hand of the man directing him.
Branyon ran as fast as he could, using the other man for balance as he tried to stay upright on the unsteady footing.
He and the other man must have run for thirty seconds before the man yanked Branyon to a stop alongside the gravel road.
Sporadic gunfire back by the cabin continued, but the CoS realized the man with him was no longer returning fire.
“Shoot!” Branyon shouted.
“I’m out of ammo. Our ride should be here any sec. Hey, are you hit? There’s blood all over my hand.”
Branyon recognized the voice of Domingo Chavez.
In the darkness a black vehicle slid to a stop right next to them. As soon as it did, Branyon heard a car door open, and then he heard the sound of a bullet shattering the windshield.
Chavez pushed him into the backseat, then leapt in on top of him, slamming right into Branyon’s torn shoulder.
The CIA chief of station screamed in agony.
Chavez said, “Go!”
And then the black vehicle revved, spun mud and water, and began racing to the north in reverse.
Branyon tried to climb up to a sitting position, but Chavez covered him with his body and held him down. “Stay put, Branyon! We’re not out of this yet!”
The Land Cruiser took five rounds to the grille, the engine, and the windshield before Caruso backed out of the forest and spun around, then turned on the headlights and stomped on the gas. They raced north on the gravel road that would take them back to Tabariškės, and from there they could hit the two-lane blacktop road that led all the way back to Vilnius.
Chavez used his med kit on Branyon’s shoulder. A massive flap of bloody tissue, easily the size of a peach, hung open off the man’s rear deltoid.
“Fuck! That hurts!” Branyon shouted.
Chavez said, “I bet it does. But you’re okay. Might have a broken clavicle, but it won’t kill you.”
“Fuck!” Branyon said again, the pain of Chavez’s manipulation of his open wound almost too much to bear. Then he said, “Donlin’s dead.”
“Yeah,” Ding confirmed. “We saw it all go down. Tried to call you, but they jammed both the cell and the sat.”
Branyon looked up to Chavez in surprise. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Why? They were trying to kidnap you and take you, a CIA chief, over the border. Why does it surprise you the Russians would also jam the comms in the area?”
Branyon winced with pain again as Chavez pressed QuickClot, a blood-clotting agent, into the open portion of the wound. Once he recovered, he said, “Because they weren’t Russian.”
Both Ding, sitting next to Branyon, and Dom, behind the wheel, said, “What are you talking about?”
Branyon just shook his head. “They weren’t Russian. They weren’t Belarusan, either.”
Ding said, “You’ve lost some blood, man. You aren’t talking straight.”
Branyon tried to shrug his shoulder but the pain almost made him vomit. After a few seconds he said, “I don’t know what language they were speaking, but it wasn’t Russian. Could have been Czech, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Croatian, something like that. But definitely not Russian.”
“Did they say anything to you?”