Black Wolf (2010) (24 page)

He reached the trees as the armored car rolled over the metal manhole cover. When he got to the fence line, he saw Nuri and the others standing near the car, staring at the sewer grate.

Danny threw himself halfway up the fence and began climbing over.

He had just reached the top when the armored car heaved upward a good two or three feet. It fell to the right, bouncing on its springs and rolling away from the tunnel opening.

Danny pulled his gun from behind his shoulder as a head popped up from the hole. He fired at it, two solid bursts ripping into the back of the man’s skull. He collapsed over the edge of the hole.

“There’s another! There’s another!” yelled Danny. He flipped over the edge of the fence and half slid, half fell to the ground. He ran over to the entrance to the tunnel, his head woozy.

Nuri, pistol out, reached down gingerly to the dead man and pulled an automatic rifle from beneath his body.

“Get ready!” yelled Danny. “Get ready—there’s another one!”

The truck started to back up. The gunner pointed his machine gun at the hole.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Nuri.

“We have to close off that entrance,” said Danny.

“Did that guy just lift that car off?” demanded Nuri.

“Get the gunner to blow up the tunnel entrance,” yelled Danny.

“Did that guy lift the cover off with the truck on it?” repeated Nuri.

“Yes—get the gunner to hit the tunnel entrance!”

“He can’t—they don’t have shells.”

“Get some explosive and blow it closed!” Danny reached for his headset. “MY-PID—where is the other man who was escaping through the tunnel?”

“He is returning to Building B.”

Danny grabbed Nuri. “Blow the entrance to the tunnel up. You understand?”

“But—”

“Just do it!”

“All right. We’ll figure it out.”

T
iny felt himself being carried through the house like a sack of potatoes. There were two of them—one holding him on his back, another nearby.

They were on the third floor, in the room he had come in through.

Tiny tried to move his legs but the man’s grip on them was too strong. His side pulsed with pain.

He felt himself being lifted, then thrown upward, tossed into the attic like a child’s doll. He clawed at the ground, desperate to get away, but it was useless; within seconds he was scooped up and once more flung over the back of one of the men.

The other was grunting something. It was too dark to see—Tiny’s night vision goggles had fallen off.

He heard a swinging sound, and realized the other man had grabbed an ax. They were going to chop their way out of the roof.

God, thought Tiny, I hope Bean doesn’t shoot me when he shoots them.

B
ean felt the wood being smacked a few feet away. He took a step back, sliding along the peak of the roof. Danny had ordered him to hold his position when the gunfire started. Bean had taken some shots at the last man who’d jumped from the window, but otherwise he’d sat here and watched as the situation deteriorated into chaos.

“Flash—I got somebody trying to chop their way out up here,” he said over the radio. “Is it our guys?”

“Two of the Wolves—they have Tiny.”

“Tiny’s with these guys?”

“Yeah.”

The axe blade came up through the shingles six feet away. Bean fired at the blade, striking it point-blank. It disappeared back below.

Bean got up and ran to the hole that the axe had just made. He kicked at it with his heel, then pulled one of the tear gas canisters from his belt and dropped it through.

“Where are they?” he asked Flash.

“They look like they’re going for the stairs.”

He retreated to the edge of the roof, pulling on his gas mask. But he stopped at the edge. It didn’t make sense to go in there with them; they’d just use Tiny as a shield.

D
anny ordered the Rattlesnakes to circle the large building, expecting the man heading back to try and escape. Boston and his men, meanwhile, had joined the others at the house, holding positions on all four sides.

Three Whiplash team members had been hurt, one seriously wounded in the leg by gunfire, the other two merely nicked by shrapnel. No one had been killed.

Yet.

There were only two Wolves still moving around in the house, but they had Tiny with them on the top floor.

There was an explosion on the other side of the fence. The tunnel entrance had been blown up.

Danny was huffing for breath when he reached the house.

“The knockout gas didn’t affect any of them,” said Flash. “Bean just tossed a tear gas canister into the attic. They’re still up there. I don’t think it bothered them at all.”

“Where are our guys?”

“They’re on floor three, covering the hole into the attic.”

“American!” The radio crackled with an unfamiliar voice. One of the Wolves had taken Tiny’s headset off. “We have your people.”

“Let him go and I’ll let you live,” Danny replied.

The man replied in what Danny thought was Russian, then switched to English.

“You will see his legs torn off!”

T
iny was still wearing the gas mask over his nose and mouth, but without the goggles his eyes had no protection, and they began stinging as soon as the canister exploded. Tears streamed from his eyes.

It was the final indignity, he thought. It was bad enough that he had to die, but now it was going to look as if he had gone out as a coward.

47

Over the Atlantic Ocean

T
urk put his hand on the throttle, nudging his power up slightly to maintain his optimal cruise speed as the tailwind shifted.

It was a bit of unnecessary fussiness—the computerized flight controls could have easily maintained the proper speed, even in a hurricane. In fact, the computer could easily fly him all the way to Prague without his intervention, even landing itself: not only could it check in with flight controllers along the way in commanded air space, but it could properly interpret commands from the tower when coming in for a landing.

But where was the fun in that? What good would airplanes be, he thought, if you couldn’t fly them?

They’d be the Sabres, still seen by the brass as the real cutting-edge answer to aviation warfare.

Wallace didn’t think so. But he’d probably retire in a year. Then no one would be talking about “manned flight.”

The hell with the future, Turk thought, marveling at the stars in his viewer. I’m flying in the here and now.

48

Northeastern Moldova

D
anny ran over to Flash and had him lock out Tiny’s receiver channel so their communications wouldn’t be compromised. But the mike stayed on, and MY-PID could hear the man who’d delivered the ultimatum about Tiny talking to his companion in his native tongue.

The computer identified the language as Kazakh—the language spoken in Kazakhstan, the former Soviet republic that still had close ties with Russia.

“Open his line up again,” Danny told Flash. As soon as it was open, Danny had the MY-PID issue the command to surrender in Kazakh. The words worked as well in Kazakh as they did in English, which was not at all.

“Out,” said Danny, motioning with his finger across his throat. Flash killed the audio. “Flick him in and out. We may be able to use the radio to misdirect him.”

“Gotcha.”

“Circuit is secure,” Danny said over the radio. “From now on, when I say ‘Talking to Wolves,’ assume they can hear whatever you say, until I broadcast a clear.”

He took stock of the situation. They had one man in the large training building, two in the house. If necessary, they could bring the Moldovans in to help.

It shouldn’t come to that. He had them outnumbered more than four to one.

He was used to kicking ass, even when he was the underdog. Now he saw what it felt like to be on the receiving end.

“If we can get them down to the third floor, we can go at them from top and bottom,” said Boston. “We can get more guys up on the roof.”

“We don’t know if they have weapons down there,” said Danny.

“If they had more weapons, they’d have them out by now.”

“We can afford to wait,” said Danny.

“What about their reinforcements? Those guys Nuri spotted in the village.”

Danny had forgotten about them. He glanced at his watch. It was past seven.

“Nuri, you on?”

“I’m here.”

“Those Russians you saw in town—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Secure the road.”

“Already working on it.”

“Tell the police no radios. The Wolves may have something inside to pick them up.”

“Right.”

Danny turned his attention back to the men in the house. He would have just ordered the Rattlesnakes to blow the damn thing up and be done with it if not for the fact that Tiny would die in the process.

He might already be as good as dead.

“Boston, who are our best shooters?” he asked.

“Everybody’s pretty good, Cap.”

“The best guys for head shots if you were the hostage.”

Boston thought for a moment. No one on the team was a poor shot, but not everyone had been trained as a sniper. That meant literally hundreds and even thousands of rounds over and over, under all sorts of circumstances.

They had six men and one woman, if Danny remembered correctly. Who were the best two?

“I guess I’m going with Squeeze and Hooch,” said Boston. “Squeeze ’cause she’s fast, and Hooch because, you know, he’s ice.”

“Tell them to put sniper kits on and get ready. They’re going wherever the bad guys go. Tell them if it looks to them like it’s going to crap, to take their shots. Head shots—these guys don’t go down easy. Tell them they’re not going to be second-guessed. Under no circumstances do the people in that building leave alive.”

“Under no circumstances,” repeated Boston.

“No
circumstances,” said Danny. Clearly, these men were too dangerous to allow them to escape. “Tell them not to pay any attention to anything I say over the radio, unless I precede it with the word ‘Whiplash.’ Got that?”

“ ‘Whiplash’ is the safety word,” said Boston.

“Nothing else I say counts.”

“Got it, boss.”

Danny looked over at Flash.

“Still in the attic,” Flash told him. “Moving around. Getting something—I think they’re going for the roof.”

“What’s going on in the training building?” Danny asked.

“He’s moving around in one of the office areas.”

“Have the Rattlesnakes destroy the cottage with the aircraft,” said Danny. “Kill the helicopters. Then take out the garage.”

Rockets began firing from the helicopters within seconds. The cottage with the skeleton chopper erupted in a burst of flame. The garage merely crumbled, the sides collapsing on the vehicles.

“What are you doing, American?” demanded one of the Wolves over the radio. “You are to cease fire.”

“Open the circuit,” Danny told Flash.

Flash gave him a thumbs-up.

“We’re not going to let you out,” said Danny.

“We will kill your man, then kill you!”

Boston waved at him, signaling that Squeeze and Hooch were ready.

“Wait!” said Danny. “Don’t kill him.”

The man laughed.

“They’re coming up through the roof,” said Flash.

“Bean, get down,” said Danny over the radio.

Bean looked down from the roof. Danny waved, signaling that he wanted Bean to comply. The trooper tossed his pack down, then grabbed the line and rappelled to the ground.

While Bean was coming down, the Wolves kicked at the hole in the roof, making it bigger. One pulled himself through. Then the other handed Tiny up and came out himself.

By now the sky had lightened considerably. The men on the house were dark shadows, but it was easy to tell which was Tiny and which were the bad guys. The Black Wolf members looked like defensive linemen, though they moved as gracefully as any halfback. They stood upright on the roof, secure in their balance. One of the men had a rifle. The other held Tiny in one arm. He had Tiny’s own submachine gun in his other hand, pressed against the Whiplash trooper’s temple as if it were a pistol.

Was one of them Stoner?
Danny thought of yelling his name, trying to make some sort of plea, then decided it would be a waste of time.

“You will move back!” shouted the man with the rifle. “Those helicopters—they will land! And you are doing a trick with the radio,” he added. “Turning my headset off. Do not do this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not a fool, American. No more this turns off, or your man dies. Then you. Move the helicopters back!”

“Have the Rattlesnakes back off, but keep the big building in their sights,” Danny told Flash, mike off. “I don’t want the guy in there to get away.”

Flash gave the command for the helicopters to back off a hundred meters.

“Team, hold your positions,” said Danny over the radio.

“Move back!” demanded the Wolves.

“Where do you want us to go?” asked Danny.

“Back!
Back!
”

N
uri couldn’t see exactly what was going on at the house, but from what he heard over the radio, it sounded like Danny was going to let them get away.

“Danny, what are you doing?” he demanded.

“Shut up, Nuri, and mind your business,” snapped Danny.

Shut up? Mind his business?

Nuri felt a flush of anger—then realized that Danny was playacting for the benefit of the Wolves in the house.

What was he planning?

Lacu looked at him.

“Your men should hold their positions,” Nuri told him.

“They have a hostage?” asked the deputy minister. “We have snipers.”

“It’s under control,” said Nuri.

“We have a car approaching on the highway,” said one of the Moldovans, running up. He was out of breath; he’d run with the message because of the instructions not to use the radio. “They’re coming to the roadblock.”

The Russians from the hotel. Reinforcements.

“Stop it,” said Nuri. Then he thought of something. “Wait. The snipers—have them meet me by the road.”

“I
f they stay that close together, we’re not getting a shot,” said Boston. “He must figure we have snipers.”

“They’re not dumb. We know that,” said Danny. “But they have to separate from Tiny to get down.”

“You and I would have to separate,” said Boston. “I’m not sure these guys have to do anything we’d have to do.”

N
uri could see the Russian car slowing as the two policemen put their hands up to flag it down. There were two police cars blocking the road behind it.

If they started to back up, what would he do?

Shoot them. But he needed the car intact. And he couldn’t use the radio to tell them.

He saw one of the policemen in tactical gear running to his right. One of the snipers.

“Wait!” yelled Nuri. “Wait!”

The policeman looked at him. Not understanding, he continued to run.

“Wait, wait!” shouted Nuri, closing the distance between them. He grabbed at the policeman’s arm. “Set up here—set up to get the driver.”

The sniper stopped.

“Get the driver first,” said Nuri, pointing.

The sniper dropped to one knee. Below on the road, the Russian was arguing with the policeman. The car started to back up.

“Now!” yelled Nuri. “Get him, get him, get him!”

T
hey heard the shot in the distance, then another.

“What are you doing, American!” yelled one of the Wolves.

Before Danny could think of an answer, Nuri came over the radio.

“We have someone stopped at the roadblock,” he said. “We had to fire warning shots to get them to stop.”

“You will let the car proceed, American,” said the Wolf.

Boston looked at Danny.

“OK,” said Danny. “Nuri, let the car come up.”

N
uri pulled the passenger out himself. Blood was everywhere. He dragged the body to the side, then pulled off his jacket. He was wearing a watch cap, but it was too sodden with blood to put on.

“Give me your pistol,” he told one of the policemen.

Reluctantly, the man handed it over. Nuri rolled down the window, closed the door, then went to the driver’s side. The body of the driver had been taken out, but the seat was covered with blood. Nuri had no choice but to sit in it.

“I go,” said the sniper as Nuri rolled down the window.

“You have to be prepared to die,” said Nuri.

“I go,” insisted the sniper.

“Pistol only,” said Nuri, pointing to his. “They didn’t have rifles. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Understand. Yes.”

“Take off your shirt,” said Nuri. “You can’t look like a policeman.”

While he did, Nuri thought of one last thing. He leaned out the window.

“Give me a grenade,” he told the policemen. “One of the grenades you showed me at the church. Quick!”

They came back with several. Nuri took just one, then asked for a medical kit. He removed the pin, holding the handle with a pair of bandages. Then he put the grenade down between his legs.

The sniper glanced nervously at him.

“Yeah, I go first if this doesn’t work,” said Nuri. “I can think of a couple of jokes, but they probably don’t translate very well.”

B
oston guessed what Nuri was up to as the car approached the driveway.

“They may know who’s been sent to pick them up,” warned Boston. “They’ll see them.”

Danny dropped back to his knee. “Flash, have one of the Rattlesnakes put its searchlight on and drop down. Shine the light so it blinds the guys on the roof.”

“You sure that won’t piss them off?”

“Let them get pissed off. They won’t do anything if they think they’re going to get away.”

The helo dropped quickly, its light flaring. The car came up the driveway slowly.

“Why does that helicopter have lights on, American!”

“I want to see what the hell is going on,” said Danny.

“Turn lights off!”

“No,” said Danny.

The Wolf raised his gun and fired at the light. The searchlight went dark—just as the car pulled next to the house.

“Now what?” said Danny over the radio.

“Stefan and Androv come out of Building A,” the Wolf said.

“OK.”

“Tell them.”

“How?”

“Loudspeaker.”

“I don’t have a loudspeaker.”

“Then go to the door and tell them.”

“They’ll kill whoever goes to the door.”

The Wolf laughed. “That is your problem, American.”

N
uri glanced at the grenade between his legs. Sweat poured down his palms as he moved it to the edge of the seat against the console. He loosened the bandage so that only the weight of his leg kept the trigger from popping.

“When we get out, the grenade will load itself,” he told the sniper. “We have like four seconds. Four seconds. Then the car blows up. You understand?”