She had loaned Vladov her silencer fitted stainless Walther PPK/S. Rourke waited with the 7.62mm SVD sniper weapon to back him up.
A prayer—it was likely all they had, she thought. And the thought of that amused her and at once frightened her.
Prayer was not something taught in the Chicago espio-nage school inside the Soviet Union.
But as she walked beside Sergeant Dressier, she tried to formulate one.
Chapter Thirty
Captain Vladov walked briskly along the trail leading down from the rocks, Lieutenant Daszrozinski beside him, the ten other men of the Special Forces unit walking two abreast. He had intentionally taken no security precau-tions — friendly forces in friendly territory needed no such precautions and to bring off the ruse, openness, inno-cence—these were necessary, more crucial than guile.
He raised his right hand, signalling a halt. “Order the men, Lieutenant, to charge their weapons but to leave the safety tumblers in the normal carrying mode. We do not wish a sharp-eyed soldier to see something amiss. And not a shot is to be fired without my order.”
“Very good, Comrade Captain,” Daszronzinski re-sponded, then turned to the men. “You have heard your commander, charge your weapons, leave the safety tum-blers in the standard carrying mode. No shot is to be dis-charged—none—unless on the specific order of Comrade Captain Vladov.” There was the rattle of bolts being cycled, the shuffling of feet, a murmur of conversation from one man to another.
“Silence now,” Vladov ordered.
He withdrew the Walther pistol loaned to him by Major Tiemerovna from beneath his tunic.
He edged the slide slightly rearward, re-checking that a round was chambered. He gave the longish, chunky silencer a firm twist, but the silencer was already locked firmly in place.
The safety on, he tried withdrawing the weapon from be-neath his tunic several times until he could do it smoothly.
His first target would be the machinegunner at the back of the vehicle. If his men had not dispatched the driver and the second man by the time he had killed the machinegunner, he would turn the pistol on these other two.
None of his men had spoken of it, but he knew his men well enough to read what they thought—to kill their fellow soldiers was something no training, however rigorous, could have prepared them for.
It was not to be looked upon as combat—but as murder, he knew.
He turned to his men. “Your attention. I shall say this once and once only. The cause we serve is the cause of the people, because it is the cause of humanity. Alone, we rep-resent the noble spirit of the Soviet People against a menace to all humankind which we ourselves have created. The ulti-mate expression of Communism has been and is to serve the worker, to break the chains of oppression. Working with our American allies this day, however uncomfortably, we shall be doing just that. Serving the cause of the People of the Soviet Union and oppressed people throughout the world. Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy and the KGB—they have ceased to be Communists. They are barbar-ians. They must be liquidated. As your captain, it is not something I enjoy to order you into battle against your fellow countrymen, but the cause we serve is just. We do not kill our comrades, we kill our enemies. And we had better be as efficient as possi-ble in this for once we penetrate the Womb, we shall be out-numbered at least forty to one. If the women and support personnel have combat skills, then eighty to one. But we are Special Forces. We are the best. We have been trained to march in the vanguard or hold the barricade. We take with us the pride of our heritage, the faith of the Soviet People. Our personal honor.”
He turned away. Along the road now he saw one of the four wheel drive patrols. And he checked getting the Walther from beneath his tunic one more time.
Chapter Thirty-one
In the rocks above, Rourke watched — he could see Vladov and his men. He could see the sentry vehicle. He charged the chamber of the Dragunov SVD’s bolt, running one of the 7.62mm type 54 R rounds into the chamber, his hand wrapping back around the pistol grip through the skeletonized buttstock.
He settled himself, his legs wife spread, his breathing even, his right eye squinted through the dark lens of his sun-glasses against the light, the scope—more than fourteen inches long—well back from the action and closer to his eye than he would have liked, despite the rubber eye cup. But he settled into it, into the unfamiliar rifle, the weapon in his hands rock steady.
“What the hell’s the range of that thing?” Reed asked from behind him.
Without moving, Rourke murmured, “Maximum effec-tive range is eight hundred meters with the specially selected ammo the gun’s issued with. But I don’t like a single trigger system on a sniper rifle. And I don’t like a semi-automatic in a sniper rifle. And I’ve never fired a Dragunov before so I don’t know what kind of quirks it might have. And if I do fire it, the scope’s gonna go banging right into my eye and so my follow-up shot’s gonna be slow and likely gonna be off. It uses the same rimmed cartridge they use in their PK GPMG and the RPK LMG—high pressure load. Any more questions?”
“No.”
“Then shut up and let me concentrate,” Rourke rasped, watching now as Vladov led his men down into the roadway. Soon, a runner should be coming back from Natalia that a convoy had been targeted.
Soon, Vladov would either flag down the approaching sentry vehicle or attempt to stop it on the fly. Rourke settled the scope on the machinegunner in the back of the four wheel drive vehicle. A quick shot would put him away and give Vladov’s men a chance to stop the vehicle before get-ting gunned down.
He waited, suddenly remembering when it had all started—when he and Paul had taken cover in the rocks above the wreckage of the jet liner and he had used his own sniping rifle against the brigands who were systematically murdering the survivors of the crash.
How long ago had it been, he wondered, not consciously wanting to remember?
And then the vehicle began to slow, the face of the man with the machinegun something he could read through the Dragunov’s PSO-1 sight. There was suspicion written all over it.
“Watch out,” Rourke told Reed.
Chapter Thirty-two
Captain Vladov stood in the middle of the roadway, his right hand raised. He shouted, “Halt!”
The vehicle had already begun to slow, but even at the distance, he did not like the look in the eyes of the soldier manning the RPK light machinegun in the vehicle’s rear.
He had no story to tell—military small talk for thirty sec-onds or so until he could get into position, then he would draw the gun and kill the machinegunner.
The vehicle ground to a halt, the brakes screeching slightly.
Vladov approached the vehicle, the man beside the driver moving his AKM slightly.
Vladov kept walking, his men behind him — he could hear their combat booted footfalls on the road surface. “I seek information. There was a convoy, just going up the road ten minutes or so ago—”
“Yes, Comrade Captain,” the man with the AKM began. “I too have seen this convoy—nothing seemed to be irregu-lar.”
“My opinion,” Vladov rasped, “exactly—what a pity, no?” The butt of the Walther PPK/S filled his right hand, the silencer hanging up on the inner seam of his tunic.
The driver was starting to move his hands on the wheel, the man from the front seat opening his mouth, raising his AKM.
Vladov’s eyes shifted to the machinegunner—the weapon was swinging toward him, the bolt being worked.
The silencer— “Damnit!” He ripped the silencer clear of his clothing.
Vladov thrust the pistol forward and pumped the trigger, the safety off before he had repositioned the pistol in his belt the last time. One round—a neat hole where the right eyebrow of the machinegunner had been. A second round—the bridge of the nose ruptured blood.