Bravo and Alpha just needed to place their explosives in the road and wait for the convoy to approach. With a single blast, they would begin their ambush by disabling the armored personnel carriers they had seen in the satellite images, then they would be able to secure the transport trucks with the suspected bioweapons.
The extra time would give them plenty of opportunity to test their defenses and make adjustments now that they were actually on the ground. Bravo and Alpha clustered in front of the hotel, wisps of fog curling around them.
“All right,” Reynolds said, kneeling behind one of the devasted trucks near the highway. “We’re a good thirty minutes early. Set up the explo—”
The rumble of truck engines suddenly broke through the fog bank.
O’Neil stared down the road.
The growl of the engines started to get closer, piercing the quiet of the foggy cityscape.
“Oh, shit,” O’Neil muttered. “They’re early. They’re already on their way.”
There was no time to prepare the explosives. Delta and Charlie weren’t even in position. And judging by the sounds of those engines, the trucks would be on them in seconds.
-10-
O’Neil looked back at Reynolds. The chief seemed to be frozen in thought, debating whether to continue with the mission or scrap it. This wasn’t what they had planned for, and they didn’t have time to readjust with two of the teams still patrolling toward the ambush.
They hadn’t even had a chance to check the nearby buildings and vehicles to see if any Skulls were lying in wait, ready to attack at the first sign of a gun battle. But if they let those Russian vehicles escape, that was it. They would lose them in the fog. No one from the air would be able to track them. They would have none of the answers they had come for.
Finally, Reynolds’s voice came over the comms. “Casper, Alpha Actual, do you copy?”
He was calling for their evac chopper. O’Neil knew they were mired in some bad shit but he hadn’t anticipated Reynolds taking them out of the game so early.
“Copy, Alpha Actual.”
“What’s your flight time to extract? We may need exfil earlier than anticipated.”
“Flight time is fifteen mikes, Alpha Actual.”
“Roger. Stand by for possible early extract.”
The rumbling of the trucks was growing louder. O’Neil could see their headlights starting to bloom in the fog.
“Does this mean we’re taking off?” O’Neil asked Reynolds.
“Hell no,” Reynolds said. “You boys all know what’s at stake. We aren’t leaving here without some answers. Things are just happening a little quicker. O’Neil, take your team across the street. No time for C4. Rockets and grenades at the ready. Wait for my mark.”
“Understood,” O’Neil said, standing from his cover.
He signaled for Loeb, Van, and Tate, then led them across the street, rushing between the concrete barriers. They dropped down behind the blackened cars and the barrier on the other side of the road.
O’Neil took them about twenty yards to their east, ensuring they wouldn’t get hit in any crossfire from Alpha.
The headlights from the convoy were growing brighter, the engines louder. O’Neil could see them pushing through the fog now, slowly but surely.
“Tate, get your rocket ready,” O’Neil said as he loaded a round into his Pirate Gun. “Loeb, Van, cover us.”
He gestured for the team to spread out into combat intervals.
“Bravo, you’re going to take the lead vehicle,” Reynolds called over the comms. “We’ll take rear.”
“Roger,” O’Neil replied.
“Delta, Charlie, we’re starting early,” Reynolds said. “Get into overwatch ASAP. If we’re firing already, you’re weapons free.”
The diesel truck engines boomed through the streets, and O’Neil could see the first one now, a black silhouette in the fog. Looked to be a Ural Typhoon, a Russian vehicle resistant to mines. Even so, they had brought enough explosives to take the beast of a vehicle out, but all those charges were unfortunately safely in their bags.
“Where the fuck are the Skulls?” Loeb asked, rifle pressed against his shoulder as he tracked the Typhoon.
Behind it came what appeared to be three more military trucks with canvas coverings over the cargo bed. O’Neil thought he could make out the last vehicle, another Typhoon, at the rear of the convoy. The five vehicles’ engines rumbled noisily through the street, echoing off the buildings.
“We should be seeing shit tons of the beasts,” Loeb said.
O’Neil thought he heard another distant wail. Maybe a shriek. Hard to tell over the rumbling engines, but Loeb was right. Engine noise like this was a surefire way of ensuring a horde of Skulls poured toward your position. Yet, far as they could tell, no beasts were rushing down the street, barreling over the asphalt to investigate the potential presence of prey.
That made no sense to O’Neil, especially since he had been certain he had heard Skulls around the city on their way to the ambush.
The Typhoon was nearly on them.
He could worry about the Skulls later.
For now, there was only the convoy.
“Bravo, weapons free,” Reynolds said over the comms.
“Rocket,” Tate said, shouldering the AT4.
“Backstage clear,” Loeb reported.
The rocket exploded from the recoilless launcher trailing a plume of smoke. It punctured the windshield of the Typhoon with a heavy thunk, followed by an ear-shattering boom. Flames erupted from inside the cabin of the vehicle, flaring in O’Neil’s NVGs. Smoke poured out from the destroyed windshield. The heat wave from the blast rolled over O’Neil. His eyes watered, his face feeling tight from the inferno.
The vehicle just kept barreling forward as if the driver had died with his foot on the pedal, the engine grinding in a violent cacophony of thumps and miniature blasts.
Before the smoke and fire settled, he used the reflex sight on his modified M-79 and launched a grenade with a throaty wallop. The grenade sailed straight through the fog and smoke into the cabin of the Typhoon. Another explosion boomed through the vehicle. More oily black smoke poured out. Screams erupted from inside.
The vehicle twisted sharply, crashing into a concrete barrier. Its front wheel dragged up on top of the barrier, and it ground to a halt, the vehicle tilted partway up and over the barrier, tires still spinning.
Not more than a few seconds later, another explosion tore through the fog, light lancing up from the rear vehicle in the convoy. The sound of spraying glass and bending metal came after the reverberating boom, followed by two more explosions that sounded like grenades.
O’Neil let his Pirate Gun fall on its sling, then shouldered his suppressed M4A1 as columns of smoke clawed out from the lead Typhoon.
The three trucks behind had hit their brakes, coming to a halt. Between the smoke and the fog, dark shapes moved out from the trucks, posting up along the concrete barriers. They immediately began firing out into the darkness. Tracer rounds coursed past O’Neil like lasers.
He returned fire, fighting to keep the enemy from advancing.
“I’ve got eight, maybe ten contacts on the southside!” O’Neil said over the comms. “All along the barriers!”
“Another seven here!” Reynolds called back, straining to be heard over the gunfire.
O’Neil continued to fire with Tate helping to provide suppression. One of the Russians started to move up toward their position, shots hammering the concrete barriers near him. Dust and concrete chips flew with each connecting round. He signaled for Loeb and Van to push toward the west, closer to the Russians so they could flank them.
The two operators began running at a crouch, sticking close to the vehicles and concrete barriers. O’Neil kept firing with Tate, keeping the Russians’ attention on his position as the two other operators moved in closer.