“In and out.” She cursed again.
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I can walk.”
Justin looked toward the closest house to his left, about fifty yards away. Two fighters were blasting a machine gun from the roof. Another man was firing his AK from one of the first-story windows. Three or four people were barricaded behind a couple of pickups by the doors.
“The house,” Justin said. “We’ll take it, then make our way to the warehouse.” He pointed in that direction, one hundred feet to his right, then returned his gaze to the house.
Yuliya peered through the thinning dust veil. “Justin, look.”
A group of four men were running away from the warehouse. They were carrying large weapons on their shoulders. Long green tubes.
“Those are probably SA-24s. Heat-seeking missiles,” Justin said in a tense voice.
“One of those will bring the chopper down.”
“We still need the choppers’ cover.”
The helicopter crew also must have also spotted the men with the missiles. A steady barrage from above stopped their advancement, albeit for a few seconds. Two of the men kept crawling forward. Bullets kicked up dirt around them, but they were very determined to complete their task.
Justin pointed his AK and let off a quick burst. One of the men toppled, along with his missile. Yuliya fired at the second one, and he fell face first to the ground.
Their shots gave away their position. The return fire from the closest house was vicious and intense. Justin and Yuliya stayed down, behind the rubble. Chunks of concrete and clods of dirt rained over their bodies. An explosion shook the area in front of them, blasting rocks and sand over their heads.
Justin peered through a small opening in the wrecked wall serving as their cover. He saw a man in front of the house preparing to throw a grenade at them. He aimed his AK and put a bullet in the man’s chest. He collapsed just as the grenade exploded by his feet.
The fighters on the roof turned their machine gun toward Justin’s position. Before they could open fire, a missile from the first Apache slammed into the house. A second one struck the roof, the smoke and the dust covering everything.
“The choppers have noticed us, and that we’re on their side,” Justin shouted over the continuous gunfire.
Yuliya nodded. She fired at an insurgent setting up his position along the opposite wall, about a hundred feet away. The man fell on his back, his last act on earth.
“Back to our old plan,” Justin said. “First, we clear the house.” He replaced his empty magazine with a new one. “Then, we attack the warehouse.”
Chapter Seventeen
McClain reluctantly authorized Carrie and Nathan to engage in the firefight only for the purpose of rescuing Justin and to avoid a diplomatic nightmare if Mossad helicopters were shot down by Canadians. Carrie understood the order to mean she could use all necessary force to save Justin’s life. If all insurgents were killed in the process, that would be an unexpected bonus.
Carrie and Nathan abandoned their jeep about a mile away from the walls of the insurgents’ camp. Most of the fighters were engaged in the all-out battle against the helicopter gunships, so their advancement through the scrubland drew only sporadic fire. They saved their ammunition until they got closer, to make every shot count.
Bullets rang dangerously close when they crossed into the two hundred yards barren strip next to the wall. Carrie responded with quick bursts. She ran to secure a position next to a couple of rocks sticking out of the uneven ground, one of the few bits of natural cover. Nathan slid next to her.
“All good?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
A volley of five missiles ripped the sky. Moments later, they slammed into the walls and turrets. A shower of cement chunks rained over the men defending those areas. The gunfire hammering Carrie’s position ceased.
“Go, go, go,” she shouted.
They both ran toward the smoldering ruins, Carrie leading the way. A grenade exploded, raising a geyser of sand that barely reached her feet. Bullets flew over her head. She responded by firing blindly through the cloak of smoke and dust.
An RPG slammed a few yards away, blasting rock and debris shrapnel behind them.
Carrie stopped, crouched.
“Nathan,” she yelled over the deafening battle noises.
“I’m OK,” he replied.
Carrie resumed running. She fired quick bursts, peering through the clearing smoke at moving silhouettes. A few more steps. The walls appeared. The explosions had caused a large part, causing a huge gap. Carrie lay flat by a heap of debris and reloaded her AK. A step behind her, Nathan did the same.
One of the helicopters banked toward the hill. A half a dozen RPGs gave chase. They were close behind, but all exploded without hitting it. The other helicopter completed a full circle and began to drop over the camp.
Then a missile pierced the sky. It was flying fast. Very fast. Screaming toward its target, the second Apache. Carrie could hardly track its trajectory of gray smoke. The helicopter dove, then swerved hard to the left. The missile followed the pilot’s maneuvers.
“Heat-seeking,” Carrie muttered.
The helicopter swung to the right, then flew straight for a second or two, the missile closing in.
“Drop, drop, now!” Carrie shouted.
Two more seconds, then the Apache suddenly took a swift nosedive. The missile continued in a straight line and exploded a moment later. It was too far away for its shrapnel to cause any damage to the helicopter.
Carrie turned to Nathan when two more heat-seeking missiles streaked toward the second helicopter. The pilot noticed them a second too late, but he still dodged the first by arrowing upward. He pulled fast to the left, escaping the second missile, then dove toward the ground. The missiles were still right behind him. The helicopter came close, very close to the ground, in a vertical fall.
The first missile smashed into the ground, exploding by the Apache’s tail rotor. The helicopter soared a few dozen feet as the second missile tore through the middle of the flying debris and exploded a moment later.
“That guy’s excellent,” Carrie said.
A bullet hit inches away from her face. The small burst of dirt smacked against the right side of her face. She dipped further below, behind the broken cinder blocks covered with sand and dirt.
Nathan fired a long barrage, then stopped to reload. Carrie crawled to her left and peered over the debris. Three insurgents were positioned next to the back wall of the warehouse, behind a jeep. Two others were shooting from around the corner.
Carrie raised her AK. She put an insurgent in her sight and fired a single shot. The man’s head exploded. She dropped her sight to the left, firing a two-round burst. The second insurgent took two bullets in his chest. The third one disappeared at the rear of the jeep.
She withdrew behind the debris pile. An RPG crashed into the wall to her left. Cinder blocks fell down, rolling close to her feet. She spun around fast to avoid getting crushed.
Nathan dropped to his left knee and squeezed off a few rounds. “Clear,” he shouted.
Carrie climbed over the debris, and ran to the left, entering the camp through a gap in the wall. “The shed.” She pointed at the small structure about ten feet ahead.
Nathan fired again while Carrie crawled over the sand and the debris. Once she put her back against the shed, she fired a few more rounds to cover Nathan. “I’m out,” she said when Nathan joined her.
“Here.” Nathan handed her one of his fresh magazines.
“Thanks.” Carrie slammed it in into her AK.
Three missiles streaked into the sky toward one of the helicopters. Its pilot dropped to the left, then veered sharply to the right, but the missiles were still closing in. A cluster of decoy flares burst out from the helicopter, painting the sky bright with their yellow sparks. The flares — designed to evade heat-seeking missiles by giving them another target with a higher heat signature — tricked the first two missiles. They exploded yards away from the helicopter’s tail.