“Over to you,” Adrienne said when they came to the edge of the lights. “Your area of expertise, Tom.”
“Right,” he said. “Everyone slow down. Take it at a brisk walk and look like you own the place. Sandy, catch your breath.”
She was in hard good condition—all of them were, after crossing the Mohave—but she didn’t have as much practice running under a load as the rest of them. He made himself wait until her face was less red and the desperate whooping of her panting had subsided. That despite the crackling tension that he could feel radiating from Adrienne as the next C-130 took off; they were closer to the runway now, and the four big props kicked a torrent of dust.
That made it natural to bend their heads and hold their hands over their eyes. Not only would this be impossible if the Bad Guys could set a proper perimeter guard, Tom thought. It would be impossible if they had any warning we were coming. The Batyushkovs and Collettas knew that any tall blond white men around here were on their side, and they were keyed up getting the Zapotec mercs onto the C-130s.
It was a mistake to get too focused on what you had planned, but it was a mistake everyone made. Tom licked sweat off his lips and hoped they’d go on making it at least a little longer.
The graveled surface of the road down from the camp crunched under the tread of soldiers’ boots, coming down in platoon columns. Behind them the searchlights from the guard towers played along the track, showing the endless rows of men in gray uniforms and peaked caps—a battalion was a lot bigger from ground level than you’d think, when you said eight hundred men. They marched in the rather stiff Russian style, swinging their free arms up across their chests from the elbow; from the look of it, the lieutenants and a couple of NCOs in each platoon were the men Batyushkov had brought in. A bit older than you’d expect men in junior positions to be, and a lot of them had Red Army medals jingling on their chests—Russkis were strange that way, wearing decorations on combat fatigues.
The armored cars were spaced out along the north side of the road, at two-hundred-and-fifty-yard intervals, ten or twenty yards back from the verge; they and the thin scatter of men between them kept the business ends of their weapons pointed at the marching troops—but fairly casually, in the way of men taking a routine precaution they don’t think will be really necessary. They were probably feeling relieved too—they’d gotten the wild men trained and on their way without a major mutiny.
The air was full of the sound of boots, of engines, rank with the stink of burnt kerosene.
The six-wheeled car Adrienne had called a Catamount was in the center; not far from it two senior officers were taking the salute of the troops passing by, returning the salute as each company did an eyes-right. One of the pair made the gesture in Russki fashion; he was tall and blond and wore a beret. The other was shorter and darker, wearing a Fritz helmet with a gray cloth cover, and he used the American style.
“Major Daniel Mattei,” Adrienne said softly, indicating him with a slight tilt of her head. “West Point, class of 1988, believe it or not. He’s commander of the Colletta Domain’s militia and the Prime’s household troops. A Family member, collateral. I don’t know the blond. Tom… that was the fourth plane.”
They were still too far away to really distinguish features. One of the men by Mattei did look over his shoulder toward them, but casually. With just a little luck, the Collettas would think they were Batyushkov men, and the Batyushkovs would think the same in reverse. Everyone being in the same uniform, with minor variations, helped a lot—and the uniform was the same gray fatigues Tom and the rest were wearing.
Still, they were going to need a distraction real soon now. And that was the fourth plane of eleven. Four hundred and eighty men; they probably intended to put the armor on the last two, to land after the infantry had seized enough ground. The whole thing was sort of pointless if they all got off….
“Sandra,” he said, without turning his head. “When the balloon goes up, you hit the deck and try for those two guys. Got it?”
“Go flat, take out those two,” she said. “Got it, big man.”
She was an excellent shot—as a hunter; he’d seen that. Whether she could actually pull the trigger when a human was in front of the sights was another matter, but it would sure help.
“Roy. On the count of three. One.”
He took a long deep breath; worry and thought went away as he exhaled. The commander of the Catamount was sitting on the turret, his left elbow hooked over a pintle-mounted Bren gun.
“Two.”
The details of the armored car came clear; six equally spaced wheels, a wedge-fronted box with a slab-sided turret. The driver was at the front in the center, three armor-glass windows in a semicircle around his position, with movable steel shutters and vision slits to cover them at need. Engine and transmission at the rear, turret in the center… and the Colletta tommy gun on the side of the hull.
“Three!”
Tully pulled a box the size of a paperback book out of a pouch. It had a handgrip in the center, and above it a covered button. His thumb flicked up the cover; he squeezed the grip safety and mashed his thumb down on the button.
Things seemed to move very slowly after that.
Jim Simmons waited patiently, the rifle snuggled against his shoulder. Fire and thunder woke in the night to the northeast, toward the mercenaries’ camp. He didn’t turn his head; no point in looking at a bright light.
He was flat on the dirt on one side of the runway; the wind from the propellers of the last Hercules had blown off his hat. The crack of his rifle was lost in the greater chorus of shouts, shots and screams that broke out closer to the ranch house, where the troops were marching down to embark. Somewhere a dog was barking, which was just what was needed to add the final touch of lovely chaos. Not that a dog could have smelled anything besides the stink of fuel burning. The spent cartridge spun away to his right and tinkled on a rock.
And two hundred yards away, where the two runways met and the control shack stood, a guard crumpled. The man beside him glanced over sharply; he’d have heard the splitting twick of the bullet, perhaps even the flat smack of its impact on flesh. Simmons shifted the crosshairs—two hundred yards was a clout shot, even in the bad light—and stroked the trigger again.
Crack.
The second man dropped, shot cleanly through the upper breastbone, blood splashing on the plank wall behind him. The impact wasn’t quite dead center, and the force of the blow turned him around and slammed him face-first into wall. He slid down it, smearing the blood.
“Go!” Simmons said crisply, snatching up the rifle as he bounced to his feet.
He dashed forward, running across the blunt nose of the next transport taxiing into position for takeoff. Kolo went before him, running with an elastic bounding stride and howling like a wolf every time his feet hit the packed dirt. He gained with every stride too, carrying nothing but the knives in his belt and the tomahawk in his hands. Simmons followed, eyes flicking over the windows in the long shed.
Motion, left two. He halted, the butt swinging smoothly up to his shoulder; crosshairs on the window… target backlit by lights in the room behind…