But Wohl’s warning was too late. The second Hind-D spotted the soldier, and the Gatling gun chattered. The soldier’s entire torso exploded like a rotting pumpkin hit by a baseball bat.
The helicopter wheeled to the left and took aim at the maintenance building. Like kicking down a sand castle a bit at a time, the maintenance shed the five men were hiding behind began to disintegrate around them under a sudden barrage of gunfire.
Wohl grabbed the three officers and yelled at them over the roar of the helicopter’s rotors, “Run!”
McLanahan, by force of habit, automatically picked up the two canvas bags full of documents, but Wohl knocked them out of his hands and with surprising strength, fueled by fear, pushed McLanahan away from the building and yelled, “Leave the damn bags and run!”
Their brief but intense Marine Corps training paid off, because none of those three healthy Air Force officers could remember running faster in their lives, even carrying Luger between them.
The maintenance shed disappeared in a blinding cloud of smoke and flying wood seconds after they darted away. The rotor wash of the second chopper started to tug at their clothing — it was as if the big attack helicopter were hovering right over them, sucking them into cannon range, ready to pluck them off their feet. Bullets flew past their heads, snapped at their feet, churned up dirt directly in front of them as they zigzagged away, not knowing or caring where they were running. It was as if the gunners were toying with them, playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game. When they tired of the game, they would simply pick a weapon and do away with them.
Their headlong run to find shelter was short because they ran right into a deep, wide concrete ditch that surrounded the base just inside the tall perimeter fence. Half-tripping, half-tumbling, they threw themselves down into the ditch, their fall cushioned only by a few inches of mud and water. On the other side of the twenty-foot-wide ditch was the twelve-foot-high concrete-reinforced perimeter fence: trapped.
The big Hind-D headed right for them, no more than twenty or thirty feet high, and at a relatively slow speed.
The door gunners could not miss …
“No!” Briggs shouted. As the Hind cruised overhead, he raised his rifle, squinted against the rotor wash and flying debris, and fired. The star-board-side door gunner clutched his chest, flew backwards into the helicopter, and then lurched forward again, hanging dead from his safety harness in the slipstream.
The helicopter careened overhead, the sound so deafening and so tremendous that it seemed to suck the air right out of their lungs.
Briggs kept on firing, trying to hit the tail rotor, the engines, something vital.
The helicopter banked left, rolled out, and banked again as if it were unsure about what to do; then it banked slightly right and headed eastward. The other stricken helicopter followed a few moments later, and together they retreated off toward the gradually brightening dawn.
The group spent a few minutes just catching their breath and waiting for their pounding hearts to calm down before attempting to move. Finally they began to show signs of life. “Jesus … Oh, Jesus,” Briggs gasped. “Man, that was close.”
“Good shooting, Briggs,” Wohl said. “That took guts. You can fire when you feel it’s necessary from now on, okay?”
Briggs was shaking too badly from their close call to respond.
“Everybody else okay?” asked Wohl. No one had suffered anything more than a twisted ankle or banged elbow, and they were on their feet and moving. “All right. Let’s get back to the security building as fast as we can and-”
“Stoy!” a voice behind them shouted in Russian. “Nyee dveghighi’yes! Nyee dveghightyes!”
Dave Luger froze immediately and placed his hands on top of his head.
“What did he say?” Ormack asked. “Who is it?”
“He said ‘stop’ and ‘don’t move,’ “ Wohl said. “Briggs, drop the rifle. Raise your hands.”
“All right — who the hell are you guys?” The voice had changed from a gruff, deep-throated warning tone with a Russian accent into a relaxed, old-fashioned Brooklyn accent. The five men turned around to find a single man, dressed in dark-blue coveralls, carrying a short automatic pistol that resembled an Uzi with a long, thick suppressor attached.
“Wohl, Chris R.”
“Marines?”
Wohl nodded and the man lowered, the gun. “Gladden, Edward G., U.S. Army. Welcome to Lithuania. Having fun yet?”
Luger found himself giggling so hard from the stress that he could not stop until Briggs patted him on the back. “Has the Army invaded Lithuania?” Ormack asked.
“I’m part of one of the A-Teams, stationed here to observe and assist,” Gladden replied. “We were moving towards your convoy to see if we could hitch a ride out of here when the helicopters attacked. That fucking Hind almost crashed on top of my hiding place in the railyard. I figured with a downed chopper nearby that there were going to be too many soldiers snooping around, so I thought it was a good time to join the real world and maybe hitch a ride home. My partner is watching the airport side.” He motioned toward the Air Force officers. “Who are you guys? You don’t look like Marines.”
“That’s classified,” Wohl said immediately. “They belong to me. How many more Special Forces guys out there?”
“Maybe a company altogether, scattered between Kaunas and the Byelorussian border,” Gladden replied, pulling a cigarette from a pocket and lighting it. McLanahan could practically taste the acid in the smoke of the Russian cigarette from ten feet away. “Let’s go talk to your CO about getting out of here.”
“You have a plan?”
“We always got a plan,” Gladden said proudly. “Lead on.” As they headed back toward the security building, Luger asked Gladden a question in Russian. Gladden smiled, nodded, and responded in easy, fluent Russian.
“Button it,” Wohl warned Luger. To Gladden, he asked, “What was that all about?”
“Your friend said that my parents must’ve had a real sense of humor to give their son initials like ‘E.G.G.’” Gladden said. “I agreed. They teach you Marines pretty good Russian.”
“He’s not a Marine,” Wohl said, “and I’d appreciate your not talking to them.”
“Are they your prisoners?”
“They’re pains in the ass, is what they are.” But Wohl’s smile made the Army Special Forces soldier even more confused.
“Through the sewers?” Snyder asked incredulously. “That’s your big plan? You want us to get out through the sewers?”
Gladden was stuffing his face with Lithuanian black bread and brown honey, given to him by some of Palcikas’ men, as if it were the first real food he had eaten in days — which it was. “Yes, sir, that’s right,” he mumbled between bites. “We discovered the link a few days ago, in preparation for your mission; we reported it to U.S. European Command, but I guess the word never got to you Marines. There’s almost a direct line that runs under the city from Fisikous, downhill all the way, and comes out on the south side of the Neris River, right near the Vilniaus Bridge. You sneak across the bridge on the service catwalk — it’s not lighted and very lightly patrolled after two A.M. or so — and you’re in the City of Progress. One mile west on Okmerges Avenue and you’re at the embassy. Or just jump in the river and swim towards the other side — it’s only a thousand meters wide. By the time you make it across, the current has taken you right to the embassy docks opposite Tartybu Street.”
“Is it safe down in the sewers?” Trimble asked. “What about untreated waste or chemicals?” The thought of swimming in shit or nuclear waste made him wince.
“Bastards that run Fisikous have probably been dumping contaminated water down that line for years, but we tested it and there’s no harmful radioactivity,” Gladden continued. “Most of the really bad sewers are farther west — we just have to contend with shit from the railroad yard, but that dilutes out after a few blocks. It’s slippery, it smells like shit, and sewage is ankle-deep in some places, but you have plenty of chances to get fresh air through storm drains, so it’s not too bad. Best of all, it’s safe and fast.”