Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (23 page)

When the first bullet struck the windshield Martinez had
reflexively backed off the throttle.

“Go!”  I screamed.  I had no idea where the sniper was or
how good he was.  If he was good enough to keep putting rounds within a couple
of inches of the same spot he would be able to eventually punch through the
ballistic glass.

Martinez immediately floored the accelerator, the diesel
roaring and the heavy vehicle surged forward.  She didn’t have to be told to
swerve back and forth between the fences as she drove.  She was a combat
helicopter pilot.  Several more spots appeared on the windshield from bullet
strikes, but they were in random spots. 

“Looks like your patrol is early!”  I shouted to Vostov over
the roar of the engine.  She twisted around, got her skirt back below her hips
and stuck her head over my shoulder.

“Probably a two man scouting party that came ahead of the
patrol.”  She said, grabbing my arm to keep from being thrown to the floor when
Martinez swerved again before making a right turn onto a side road.  I had no
idea where it went, but almost anything was better than being a sitting duck
for a sniper.

“And they’re probably on the radio with the patrol right
now.”  I said.  “Will they call in air?”

She turned her head and had a brief conversation with Igor
in Russian.  “Igor says that for one vehicle they will just track us.  They
don’t know who’s in the truck, or why we’re running, and they won’t want the
Air Force involved as long as they think they can stop us.”

“How big is the patrol?”  I asked, running ideas around in
my head.

“Usually five men.”  She answered after another exchange
with Igor.

“Are you willing to kill your countrymen to get away with
these bombs?”  I asked her.  “If they aren’t going to stop chasing us, we’re
going to have to fight before they get a couple of helicopters up here to frag
all of our asses.”

“Frag?”

“Frag, as in fragment.  Blow us all to hell.  Fire an armor
piercing round right up our ass.”  She looked at me a moment then turned to the
two Russian soldiers.  They talked for a couple of minutes, voices raised and
getting passionate a couple of times, then they seemed to reach a consensus and
nodded all around.

“We will fight.”  She said, turning back to me.  “We don’t
want to, but this is bigger than a few soldiers.  It will just make it all the
sweeter when Barinov is turned into a pile of ash.”

I looked into her eyes to make sure I saw the resolve that
would need to be there.  I did.  Turning, I locked eyes with the other two
Russians and saw the same.  Nodding to myself, I turned to Martinez and told
her to find us some terrain that would hide the MRAP.  Five minutes later the
road narrowed significantly and started to wind down into a canyon.  Large rock
outcroppings pushed in on one side, a steep drop off looming on the other.

“There!”  I said to Martinez, pointing at a narrow trail
that cut between two massive rocks on the right side of the road.

She jammed the brakes and cut the wheel, driving the MRAP
onto the small track.  When I said it was narrow I wasn’t exaggerating.  Both
sides of the vehicle scraped on rock as Martinez pushed on.  After only a few
feet the trail ended and we came to a stop with our front bumper touching a
sheer rock face.  None of the side doors could be opened as they were wedged
against solid rock, so we popped the rear doors and jumped to the ground.

“Will the sniper team join up with the patrol?”  I asked.

“No.  They will follow behind them to provide security.” 
Vostov answered, this time without having to consult Igor.

Climbing back into the MRAP I picked up Scott’s suppressed
rifle and tossed it out the door to Vostov, followed quickly by all the spare
magazines Scott had on him.  Next I removed his radio and earpiece, jumped back
out and handed it to Vostov.

“I’m going after the sniper team.”  I said.  “The patrol is
yours.”

Martinez looked at me like she wanted to say something, but
kept her mouth shut.  Vostov looked at me and nodded as she attached the radio
to her clothing and inserted the earpiece.  Igor stepped forward and placed a
big, meaty hand on my shoulder.  I waited for him to say something, but after a
moment he withdrew his hand and turned to start setting up an ambush for the
patrol.  I could only imagine the conflicting emotions that were going through
his heart at the moment.

“Don’t make me regret trusting you.”  I said to Vostov in a
quiet voice before turning and starting to make my way back up the side of the
canyon.

I stayed well off the pavement, and the going was steep and
difficult.  The side of the canyon was packed sand, rock and the occasional
cactus.  The only place for the sniper team to set up was at the edge of the
mesa, looking down, and I needed to get there before they did.  It was almost a
certainty that they would have night vision and if I wasn’t in place waiting
for them they’d just have a deep, hearty Russian chuckle as they put a bullet
in me.

There was still twenty feet of steep, rugged terrain to the
top when I heard voices.  Russian voices.  They were speaking quietly, but the
clear, high desert air carried the sound quite well.  It was a short
conversation followed by the soft sound of a vehicle door closing and an engine
starting.  A moment later, an American Humvee nosed over the edge and started
down the winding road a few dozen yards to my right.  They were running dark,
no light showing.

I thought about it for a second, wondering why they were
driving a Hummer.  Once I thought about it, it all made sense.  Why transport
all the heavy ground vehicles from Russia when there were plenty to go around
in America, just waiting to be taken.  Plus, all the spare parts they could
need were right here, so that’s even more equipment they didn’t have to put on
a plane.  Besides, it’s not like a Hummer is a specialized piece of equipment. 
If an 18 year old Army Privates can drive one, there’s no reason the Russian
Army couldn’t.

Staying very still until the Hummer was below my position, I
turned my head to look for the MRAP.  I couldn’t see it in the faint moonlight,
but could see the two rocks far below that were hiding it.  I didn’t know what
type of ambush had been set up for the Russian patrol, but I did know that
there was a high probability that some of my team – when the hell did I start
thinking of the Russians as my team? – would have to expose themselves to
sniper fire from above.

In a straight line it was less than 400 yards to where they
were waiting, even though the road wound around and covered well over half a
mile to get there.  Less than 400 yards for a trained military sniper is a
nothing shot.  These guys routinely train at 800 plus yards.  I had to find and
neutralize the two men before they started ruining peoples’ evening.

I climbed/crawled the final twenty feet on my belly, moving
slower than I wanted, to stay as quiet as possible.  A large tarantula crawled
out from behind a rock and scurried across my hand.  Flashing back to a mission
in Central America many years ago I remembered a team mate and close friend we
called Spider. 

He was bigger and meaner than me.  A spider the size of a
nickel had crawled into his bunk one night at Fort Bragg.  He’d screamed like a
pre-teen girl and tried to shoot the damn thing before we tackled him and took
his weapon away.  From that day forward he was known as Spider.  He was gone
now, having survived the Army but not the heart attack that had taken him a few
years ago. 

Smiling at the memory of my friend, I kept crawling until I
was able to poke my eyes above the lip of the mesa.  Turning my head a fraction
of an inch at a time, I scanned the immediate area.  Not seeing anything in
either direction I patiently scanned the whole area a second time.  Still
nothing.  Where the hell were they?  I was about to start a third scan when the
muted sound of a boot rubbing on sand came from my left.

I froze and listened, but heard nothing additional.  Slowly
I turned my head, still seeing nothing, then remembering my training started
looking for “what is wrong with this picture”.  Rocks are irregular shapes, and
so is the human body, especially when concealed and lying on the ground. 
Cactus are unique shapes unto themselves.  What doesn’t occur in nature are
perfectly straight lines.  Perfectly straight lines are almost always something
man made, like a rifle barrel.  Then I spotted him.

The rifle barrel was silhouetted against the night sky from
my vantage point, visible even with the camouflage netting that had been placed
over it for concealment.  Now that I knew where to look I could see the
sniper.  Make out his body, his face pressed to the stock of the rifle, eye to
the scope.  He was at the base of a rock the size of a VW Beetle, pressed into
the recess where it met the ground.  The rifle was extended over the edge of
the mesa, pointed down into the canyon at a 45 degree angle. 

I didn’t see his spotter, but he had to be within whispering
distance of the sniper.  Or so I thought.  America fields two man teams, a
sniper and spotter, and they are usually joined at the hip.  I knew that when I
had been in the Army and studied Russian tactics they followed the same
doctrine, but had that changed?  Was the spotter possibly at another location
and in touch via radio?  It didn’t make sense, tactically, but I sure wasn’t
seeing the second man.

The clock in my head was ticking.  I had to eliminate the
sniper before the ambush started.  Slowly, I wormed my way onto the mesa, up on
knees and elbows now.  Crawling straight forward to get behind the sniper’s
peripheral vision I turned and worked my way behind him.  I was moving slow and
silent, each elbow and knee being placed lightly to test for noise before I
shifted my weight forward. 

Finally I reached a point thirty feet directly behind the
prone man and paused.  Now one of the things a spotter is responsible for in
addition to helping identify targets is providing security while the sniper is
focused downrange.  I still couldn’t find the other man and momentarily worried
that he already had a rifle aimed at a point between my shoulder blades.  With
the thought, a spot on my upper back twitched and started itching.

Moving as slow and quiet as I ever have, I pulled my rifle
around off my back.  Settling my cheek into the stock I peered through the scope
which was overkill at only 30 feet.  Using the night vision in the scope I
swiveled back and forth, hoping to spot the second man.  Still nothing.  I
swiveled farther to the right, again found nothing and shifted aim back to the
sniper.  I hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t detected any movement, but he was
gone.

Two loud explosions I recognized as American grenades
shattered the night, then the sound of unsuppressed AKMS rifles reached my
ears.  The ambush.  I started to raise up onto my knees and elbows to change
positions, but a heavily accented voice from behind froze me in place.

“Not to be moving, American.  I will be shooting you.”

Rachel woke up shivering and in pain.  It was completely
dark and she panicked momentarily when she realized she was in water to above
her waist.  She tried to move, but something was holding her in place and there
was a weight on her legs.  Forcing herself to calm down she touched the object
on her legs and felt thick, wet fur.  Dog! 

It all came back to her in a flash of memory.  Fleeing the
tornado in the pickup.  Jackson driving and crashing them into the ditch she
had spotted to escape the devastating wind.  Jackson!  She reached out with her
left hand, fumbling in the darkness until she felt his thick shoulder on the
opposite side of the bench seat.

Mind racing, Rachel tried to prioritize what she needed to
do.  Before she could help Dog or Jackson, she needed to extricate herself from
the truck.  Why was it full of water?  Forcing her hand down by her side she
hit the seat belt release button then had to shift Dog’s body to let it retract
and free her.  She let out a sigh of relief when she placed a hand in front of
Dog’s muzzle and felt his breath.  He was breathing steady and strong.  Alive. 
Hopefully nothing was broken and he had just been knocked out like her and
Jackson.

Reaching to her right, Rachel’s hand banged against the
window.  Feeling around she found the door handle and pulled on it, hearing the
lock release.  She pushed on the door but it didn’t budge.  Was the passenger
side of the truck stuck against the wall of the ditch they’d taken shelter in? 
It was too dark to tell.

Rachel moved her hand around the door panel, gratefully
finding a window crank and not a button for electric windows.  She turned the
lever and it started moving slowly, the window next to her face beginning to
retract into the door.  There was obviously damage that was binding either the
mechanism or the track the window traveled in, but with some effort she was
eventually able to get it all the way down.

It was raining, not torrents like before, just a steady rain
that pattered on the roof and came in the open window.  Rachel stuck her arm
out and felt the muddy wall of the ditch.  It was close to her.  Very close. 
Too close for her to squirm through the opening and onto the roof of the
truck?  She reached up to the top of the window and moved her hand back and
forth between the steel frame of the door and the mud.  It seemed like it would
be a tight fit, but she thought she could make it, not for the first time
regretting the implants she’d had put in her boobs.  Wouldn’t it just be
fitting if she couldn’t get out of the truck because of a boob job.

Gently shifting Dog to the seat between her and Jackson, she
paused when he whimpered.  Stroking his muzzle she spoke soothingly to him,
hoping he was waking up, then pulled her legs under her butt and twisted her
upper body to pass through the window.  She worked her head through, pausing
when she could see over the roof of the truck.  Even though it was raining,
there were large rents in the cloud cover and some moonlight was making it
through.

Rachel could see that the roof was a good four feet below
the lip of the ditch.  That four feet of elevation difference had saved them. 
The ditch was about a third full of water, swamping the truck to a point
halfway up the doors.  Taking a breath, she repositioned her feet and pushed,
popping her shoulders and arms free, but came to a stop when the top of her
breasts met the edge of the window frame.  She tried pushing her back into the
muddy wall of the ditch.  Tried rubbing handfuls of mud on her shirt to make it
slippery.  Nothing worked. 

Cursing, she squirmed her way back through the window and
splashed back onto the seat.  A moan from the other side of the cab caught her
attention.

“Please wake up.”  She said softly, as much to herself as to
Jackson.  She reached across to touch him, finding him slumped forward,
forehead resting on the top of the steering wheel.  Cautiously probing she felt
a large bump on his head where he’d most likely struck the wheel when they crashed. 
She also noted how hot his skin felt, feeling even more chilled because of it. 

Reaching behind Jackson, she pulled on the door handle and
the door popped open a couple of inches before hitting the ditch wall on that
side.  Realizing there was more room on the left side of the truck, she found
the window crank and lowered the window.  Moving onto the floor and getting on
her knees, she shifted Dog over onto her seat.  Back on the seat she climbed
over Jackson’s back as carefully as possible, afraid of falling on him and
hurting him more than he already was.

At the window, she repeated the slithering maneuver and
again got her head and shoulders above the truck’s roofline before getting
stuck by her boobs.

“Goddamn it!”  She said and slammed a fist on the roof of
the truck.  Jackson moaned again and she called to him to hang on.  She didn’t
know how she would be able to help him.  He weighed way too much for her to
move, and was way too big to squeeze through the narrow opening, but there was
no way she could help him if she was trapped too.

Squirming back into the truck she almost screamed when
something touched her arm, but it was only Dog.  He was on his feet and had
stuck his nose against her.  Relief to have him conscious flooded through
Rachel and she took a moment to wrap him up in a hug before turning back to the
window.  This time she faced the mud and started levering her body up through
the window. 

With considerable effort she managed to force her way clear,
momentarily fearful that she was going to pop one or both of her implants.  A
giggle nearly escaped her mouth when she pictured herself in a tight shirt,
lopsided with one big boob and one small one.  Pushing the ridiculous image out
of her head she got her feet up on the door and kept squirming, finally getting
her hips past the top of the truck.  At that point she was free, quickly
pulling her feet up and walking her ass across the roof of the truck to the
middle before pulling her knees to her chest to combat shivers of cold.

Covered in mud, she sat there trying to figure out how to
get Jackson and Dog out of the truck.  Even on the roof her head was still
below the top of the ditch and she slowly stood to get a look at what was
around them.  Turning a full 360 degrees she was dismayed to see nothing other
than darkness.  Several vehicles lay on the pavement a couple of dozen feet
away, moonlight gleaming faintly on their chrome details.

She wasn’t sure, but didn’t think the cars had been there
when they’d driven into the ditch.  Had the tornado deposited them as it
passed?  She well knew the big storms certainly had the power to do so. 
Looking back down at the truck she was standing on she heard a thump from below
and leaned forward to see Dog pressing his nose to the rear window.  She could
hear him whining, wanting out of the wrecked vehicle.

The rear window!  If she could break it out then she would
have easy access to rescue Jackson and it would be an easy leap for Dog. 
Sitting back down, Rachel dropped into the bed of the truck, splashing into a
foot of muddy water.  She turned and looked at Dog who was uncharacteristically
frantic, clawing at the mud through the open passenger window in an attempt to
escape.  Jackson was still unconscious.

Checking around in the bed of the truck, she came up empty
with anything to break the glass.  Climbing back to the roof she leapt to the
edge of the ditch, clawing in the sticky mud to pull herself up onto the
shoulder of the road.  Pausing a moment to look around for any danger, she
dashed to the closest vehicle when she didn’t see or hear anything.

The car was a newer Cadillac, all the glass missing out of
the windows.  It sat on its roof at the edge of the shoulder and with a shudder
Rachel realized it had only been a matter of blind luck that had prevented the
tornado from dropping it right on top of them.  Hoping for a tire iron, she
moved to the trunk but it wouldn’t release.  On her hands and knees she crawled
inside the vehicle, found the trunk release button and pushed it to no avail.

Abandoning the Caddy, she moved on to a small Mazda SUV that
sat on four flat tires.  The body was twisted and none of the doors or rear
hatch would move.  Next she came to a Chevy truck lying on its side.  The back
window was missing, not just broken out, but the entire thing gone out of the
frame.  Sucked out by the tornado, Rachel mused as she stepped into the bed and
leaned into the cab. 

Shoving the rear seat out of the way she dug around in the
darkness until her fingers felt the cold iron of a lug wrench.  It held fast
when she tugged and she had to stop and run her hand down its length until she
felt the large, plastic wheel that secured it in place.  Spinning the wheel,
she grabbed it when it clattered free.  As she ran back to the ditch she could
hear Dog’s whines and growls as he continued to try and dig his way free.  What
the hell had him so panicked?

At the edge of the ditch, Rachel paused and composed
herself.  A bad landing that resulted in a twisted ankle or broken leg would be
beyond bad.  It would most likely be fatal.  Measuring the distance with her
eyes, she jumped and landed square in the middle of the roof.  The rain slick
metal afforded poor traction and her boots slipped, her legs flying out from
under her and she landed squarely on her ass.

Tail bone hurting, she dropped into the bed of the truck with
a splash and turned to look in the cab.  Dog had made a lot of progress with
his digging and mud coated much of the inside of the vehicle.  He was still
going at it, whining and snarling as he worked to clear room to squeeze his
body out of the window.  Rachel glanced at Jackson who was still unconscious
with his back to her.

Stepping back, she took a practice swing with the tire iron,
turned her face away and smashed it into the window right behind Jackson.  The
glass shattered, spider webs appearing across the entire surface, but it stayed
firmly within the frame.  Rachel hit it again, rewarded this time with a hole
the size of a softball.  She kept beating on the glass, finally reversing the
tool and using the rounded edge to rake shards out of the way.  Before she
could finish, Dog leapt through the window, nearly knocking her down in his
desire to get out of the truck’s cab.  Rachel looked at him standing near the
tailgate, head lowered and a loud growl rumbling in his chest.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”  She asked him as she
kneeled down in the water.

Turning her attention back into the cab she saw that Jackson
was starting to move.  That was a good sign.  She leaned her whole upper body
in through the window, trying to see Jackson’s face as he lifted it off the
steering wheel.  Reaching out she placed a hand on his powerful back.  With a
guttural snarl he turned, reached up and grabbed her neck, lunging for her face
with snapping teeth.