He swung the silenced Walther to his right. Daszrozinski and Corporal Ravitski were on the man with the AKM, Daszrozinski ripping open the man’s throat with a knife.
Ravitski was thrusting a bayonet into the soldier’s abdo-men. Three of Vladov’s men were swarming over the hood of the vehicle toward the driver, but the vehicle was already in motion, moving.
Vladov fired the Walther once, then again and again, into the back of the driver’s head and neck. The driver slumped forward.
Ravitski had the wheel, leaning across the already dead soldier with the AKM, his hands visibly groping for the emergency brake.
The vehicle stopped.
Vladov shot his cuff, looking at the face of his watch— eight minutes, perhaps less before the next patrol vehicle would be along.
“Quickly—their uniforms,” and he dropped the safety on the Walther PPK/S American’s slide and started toward the vehicle. “There is little time, Comrades.”
Chapter Thirty-three
The runner had returned almost the same instant Vladov had shot the driver of the patrol vehicle, almost the same instant Rourke had begun a trigger squeeze on the Dragunov sniper rifle. But as the driver had slumped forward across the wheel, Rourke had eased the pressure, then set the safety to listen as the runner detailed to Reed the partic-ulars of the convoy Natalia had selected. From the man’s words, it seemed that the convoy would intersect the por-tion of the road where now Vladov’s men replaced the KGB in under ten minutes.
Rourke looked at the runner. “You rest easy here for a couple of minutes. Join us down by the road unless the con-voy’s too close—if that’s the case stay here until it’s through—don’t wanna tip our hands.”
Rourke pushed himself up, snatching up his own rifles, slinging each cross body to opposite sides of his torso, then picking up the Dragunov. “What the hell’s that, sir?” the enlisted man asked.
Rourke looked at him and smiled. “Ask the colonel later—he knows all about it now.”
Holding the Dragunov in his right fist, Rourke started down from the rocks, the distance to the road approxi-mately six hundred yards as he estimated it, but slow going because of the rocky, uneven terrain.
He glanced behind him once—Reed was coming, his M-16 in both fists at high port.
Rourke lost himself in thought as he ran. He would never understand Reed. It seemed as though gruffness and abra-siveness were a shield he used to cover whatever really lay inside him. He had observed the growing respect in Reed for Vladov and his men, noted the grudging quality of Reed’s remark to Vladov—good luck.
Rourke jammed a deadfall pine, sidestepping a depres-sion that was covered by some of the lingering mountain snow—but the snow was sagged downward at the center, betraying the depression beneath. He reached the trail—it would be easier going now, he thought.
He glanced behind him again, Reed was coming, and from the sniping position in the rocks above, the runner was starting down.
Below him on the roadway, three of Vladov’s men were already boarding the sentry vehicle, three others of his men dragging the bodies of the dead to the side of the road to-ward the varied assortment of large sized fallen rocks. To his right on a track which would intersect the trail down from the higher rocks, he could see Natalia, running, be-hind her the remainder of the American force.
If he could set it up properly, Rourke realized, they would have a solid chance against the convoy, but after that once they reached Cheyenne Mountain and tried to bluff their way in, he didn’t know. But it was the sort of thing one had to play a step at a time, he thought, saying it under his breath as he ran, “A step at a time.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Two of the Americans and two of the Russians were sent back up into the rocks, with them were left the assault rifles, backpacks and other heavy gear of the remainder of the force.
Rourke, Natalia beside him, Reed, then Sergeant Dressier behind her, waited in the drop of the far side of the road from the high rocks where Rourke had waited earlier with the Dragunov. The next patrol had been waved past by Vladov, the Jeep’s hood up, Vladov proclai-ming a loose battery cable.
Vladov himself had assumed the driver’s slot aboard the sentry vehicle, Corporal Ravitski and Lieutenant Daszrozinski with him, the lieutenant manning the RPK in the back of the vehicle.
Once again Natalia had her silenced stainless Walther, freshly loaded. None of the AKS-74s were silencer fitted, nor the M-16s. Putting a silencer to a .45 was something Rourke had always felt absurd and revolvers could only rarely be effectively silenced. For the rest of them, beyond Natalia’s pistol, it was nothing but knives and hands.
In Rourke’s right hand now, he held the Gerber MkII fighting knife, the spear point double edged blade given a quick touch up on the sharpening steel carried on the out-side of the sheath.
Rourke still carried his hand guns, but had no intention of using them. A shot fired would blow the entire opera-tion, because in the mountains as they were, sound could carry for great distances.
They waited, Rourke listening for the first rumbling sounds of the convoy. Three trucks, U.S. Army deuce and a halves, and two motorcycle combinations, these Soviet M-2s, the sidecars fitted with RPK light machineguns with forty-round magazines only as best Natalia had been able to observe from above the road.
What the trucks carried or how many men beyond the two men visible to Natalia earlier in the truck cabs, there was no way of knowing.
They waited.
Rourke shifted position, tempted to tell Natalia to hang back, let him and the other men join the battle.
But it was a ridiculous thought and he dismissed it almost instantly. She would not — and he doubted he’d be able to cold cock her so easily a second time. And she fought better than most men fought to begin with. So she was more useful in battle than any of the others.
He said nothing.
But he looked into her eyes — she winked at him once.
He winked back.
They waited.
Then he heard it—the sound of a two and one-half ton truck’s gearbox, the roar of an engine. Then the sound of one of the motorcycle combinations.
There was no need to signal to the remainder of Vladov’s men, who occupied positions in the rocks on the other side of the road. They would have heard it, too.
There was the sound—a sound of steel being drawn against leather—Sergeant Dressier with what Rourke recog-nized as a Randall Bowie.
There would be no sound of Natalia’s Bali-Song being opened — she would open it when she needed it and not be-fore. It was usually her way.
No one said, “Ready,”—none of them was fully ready but they were as ready as possible. Knives against assault rifles and light machineguns.
Rourke pricked his ears, listening as Vladov shouted to the convoy. “There is trouble along the roadway—we must see your papers.”
There was the screech of brakes, the sounds of transmis-sions gearing down. Rourke didn’t dare to raise his head above the lip of rock and peer across the roadway.
“We must see your papers—who commands this con-voy?” Vladov’s voice.
Another voice, the voice with a heavy Ukranian accent. “I command this convoy, Corporal—what is the meaning of this? These materials are consigned to the Womb Project.”
I must check your papers, Comrade Major—I am sorry, but I have my orders—from Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy himself, Comrade Major.”
“This is preposterous—what sort of trouble along the road?”