The Sniper and the Wolf (11 page)

27

NORTH OSSETIA,
Russia

Major Nikita Yakunin heard and felt the explosion as he and his men were entering the forest. The Spetsnaz men immediately took cover, watching the sky as the two remaining Hinds broke north and south away from the target area just over three hundred meters ahead.

“Find out what the hell happened!” Yakunin ordered his RTO (radio telephone operator). Then he ordered three men forward to take up point across the line of advance, adding, “Keep your eyes open!”

The Hinds circled back around to engage the encampment from a safer distance.

“Where the hell are they?” demanded Yakunin, unable to see either helo. “It sounds like they’re firing from Moscow!”

“They’re standing off,” reported the RTO. “Smirnov was shot down with a missile.”

Yakunin’s intel reports had said nothing about Umarov’s men possessing MANPADS.

“A missile or an RPG?”

“A missile! The pilots are afraid to get any closer, and their rockets are impacting in the trees. They don’t have a clear shot on the camp.”

“Tell them to fly higher!” Yakunin ordered.

The RTO relayed the order. “They say they’ll be vulnerable to missile attack if the enemy has line of sight. Their orders are not to directly engage in the presence of a missile threat.”

“What fucking use is an attack helicopter if can’t be used to attack?”

The RTO shrugged. “Do you want me to ask them that?”

Yakunin glared at him and then ordered his men to form up in three columns of eight.

“You tell those cowards in the sky to keep the enemy pinned down as we advance!”

The RTO immediately relayed the command.

UMAROV TOLD BASAYEV
to get on the radio to their friends camped to the east. “Tell them we need reinforcements,” he said calmly, with Russian rockets exploding in the treetops. Debris showered down on the encampment, but so far no one was hit.

Basayev ducked into the cave to grab the radio, and Umarov rallied five men.

“See that crocodile?” He pointed south through the treetops at the Hind, where the land sloped gradually away from the encampment. “He’s holding his position—firing sporadically to keep our heads down. That means the Spetsnaz are advancing! The five of you take RPGs and run through the forest to get beneath him. You will fire at the same time: to his left, right, rear, and front!” He pointed his finger, singling out one of the men. “
You
will fire straight up the middle! He’ll be completely bracketed, with nowhere to maneuver. Now run! Bring him down!”

The Chechen fighters slung their AK-47s and took off through the trees to the south, each with an RPG-7 over his shoulder.

Lom appeared at Umarov’s side. “Where do you want me, Uncle?”

Umarov put a hand on his shoulder and grinned. “Great shot! You saved us.”

Lom shrugged, knowing the value of humility in combat. “He practically flew right into it. Where do you want me?”

“I want you to run east as fast as you can,” Umarov said. “Take the old
koza
trail. Find Prina’s people and lead them back here.”

“Why don’t we all escape that way?”

Umarov shook his head. “We can’t fight a running battle against Spetsnaz and crocodiles. We’ll be destroyed. This is a good position. We’ll make our stand here and let them batter themselves bloody. Now, run. Run as fast as you can.”

Lom darted off through the trees, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Umarov called for three more men with RPGs.

The first five grenadiers scrambled through the trees with their RPGs, the
ripping
sound of the helo’s Yak minigun cutting through the air, and its red tracers snapping the limbs of the hardwoods high above them as it fired on the camp from an oblique angle. They were arriving at their optimal firing position when the pilot spotted them and canted the aircraft in their direction, letting loose a torrent of machine-gun fire and rockets.

One of the grenadiers was hit in the torso with a burst of 12.7 mm fire and virtually exploded in a splash of blood and guts. Without missing a step, the grenadier behind him snatched the fallen RPG from the ground and continued on. An 80 mm rocket detonated against the ground directly in front of him and blew off his legs.

The remaining men stopped abruptly to take up firing positions. The leader called out three separate firing points, and they fired simultaneously, bracketing the Hind as best they could from the left, right, and dead-on.

The pilot saw the rockets streaking toward his aircraft and knew his best chance was to yank back on the stick and show his titanium
underbelly. All three rockets missed, and he canted the nose forward again to let loose another hellish torrent of machine-gun fire. With the crew’s attention focused on killing the remaining Chechens, neither man spotted the second team of grenadiers that Umarov had sent southeast to flank the helo once it had engaged the sacrificial first team.

The three men fired in unison, and all three RPGs detonated against the starboard side of the aircraft, which broke apart in the air, exploding in an orange-black fireball and crashing in pieces to the forest floor.

YAKUNIN HEARD THE
second explosion and swore a blue streak, realizing there would be very little to keep the enemy from escaping eastward once the last remaining Hind ran out of ammo. “That bastard Umarov has more luck than anyone I’ve ever heard of!”

He ordered his men to double-time it the last two hundred meters, fearing his prey might already be fleeing.

When they arrived at the perimeter of the Chechen encampment, they were met with a hail of machine-gun fire. The RTO was hit in the face and went down, his mandible and teeth shot completely away, leaving his tongue dangling from the open neck. The wound was survivable, but the man would never speak, eat, or look like a human being again.

Yakunin shot him through the head with his AK-105 carbine and ordered one of the others to take over the radio.

Without being told, the Spetsnaz broke into groups of three, leapfrogging aggressively through rocks and trees with AN-94 assault rifles in 5.45 mm. They took hits, and one man went down, but they were heavily armored and determined to kill Umarov before he escaped again. Half the AN-94s were fitted with GP-34 40 mm grenade launchers (similar to the American M203) mounted below the barrel. They fired a veritable hail of 40 mm grenades into the Chechen encampment.

Dirt and rock and splintered trees flew in every direction as Umarov’s men were forced flat to the ground under the heavy barrage. The Chechens had used their entire supply of RPGs bringing down the second Hind, and seven more men were killed quickly. The remaining helo began to engage from the rear. Rockets exploded near the encampment, and the Yak minigun began finding targets.

The Russians had the Chechens blocked east and west, and the rocky slope mitigated any hope of fleeing to the north. The only avenue of escape was to the south toward the open country. But there they would surely be caught out and killed by the Hind, even if they managed to outrun the Spetsnaz, which was unlikely.

Basayev appeared at Umarov’s side with the radio telephone unit. “They’re coming!” he shouted over the din. “Prina’s men are close enough to hear the shooting. Can we hold for ten more minutes?”

Umarov peered up through the trees, looking for the Hind. He could still hear the machine, but it seemed to have circled south, probably attempting to cover both escape routes.

“Fall back!” he shouted to his men, hating the order but knowing there was no other hope except to link up with Prina’s men, who would have the RPGs needed to even the odds against the Spetsnaz and keep the aircraft at bay.

Four men volunteered to stay behind and cover the retreat, knowing it meant their deaths.

Umarov smiled at them. “Allah be with you!” He then fell back through the forest with the remainder of his force: fifteen men out of the original forty-five.

THE SECOND THE
return fire began to trail off, Yakunin knew that the Chechens were retreating. “Move forward! They’ve broken!”

The Spetsnaz maneuvered directly into the Chechen encampment, maintaining fire superiority and moving from cover to cover.
A light machine gun cut loose from between two boulders, its 7.62 mm fire cutting apart two men from less than fifty feet away. The position was reduced immediately by a barrage of 40 mm grenades, and the Spetsnaz swept past.

“It’s a defense in depth!” Yakunin called out. “Take care!” He slowed their advance, knowing that a running fight could be twice as dangerous.

“Grenades!” Everyone hit the dirt as four black orbs landed in their midst.

The grenades exploded at the same time, each RGD-5 packed with four ounces of TNT. Bodies were lifted into the air, and Yakunin felt hot shrapnel bite into one of his legs.

Two more grenades rained down from an unseen position, exploding among the Spetsnaz, and Yakunin ordered his people to fall back. “Find that filthy son of a whore!” he screamed.

As if to oblige, the Chechen jumped from behind a tree eighty feet away with an AK-47, firing and hitting the major on the breastplate of his body armor.

Yakunin was knocked back by the force of the bullets, which failed to penetrate, though one did tear off most of his left ear.

The Chechen was gunned down an instant later.

“Find Umarov’s body!” Yakunin swiped at the side of his head with a gloved hand to see the glove covered in blood.

The medic arrived at his side. “The ear’s gone, Major. I’ll dress the wound.”

“Later!” Yakunin shouldered past. “Find Umarov!”

The Spetsnaz fanned out to examine the bodies, all of them well acquainted with Umarov’s face. Each body was knifed in the throat to make sure it was dead.

One of bodies leapt to its feet as a Spetsnaz corporal reached to turn it over. The Chechen shot the corporal in the groin with a pistol, and the corporal dropped to his knees, pressing the trigger mechanism on a spring-loaded ballistic knife. The steel blade struck the
Chechen in the chest, partially severing the aorta. Both men were on the ground bleeding out when a sergeant bound forward and shot them both.

“Major!” the sergeant called. “Dokka Umarov is not here!”

“After him!” The sudden
ripping
sound of the Yak minigun to the east told them the Hind had reacquired the retreating Chechens. “Now we’ve got his ass!”

28

SICILY

Gil lay prone in the brush on a bluff overlooking the goat farm three hundred yards below. Peering through the scope of the G28 sniper rifle, he could clearly make out the red LaForza and the black Peugeot, both parked behind the house with Kovalenko’s car, where they could not be seen from the country road.

“It’s them, all right,” Gil said, moving aside for Dragunov to have a look. “Midori got it on the first try.”

Dragunov watched as one of Kovalenko’s men stepped out the backdoor of the house, smoking a cigarette. “Demetri,” he muttered, recognizing the Chechen Spetsnaz man. “
Mudak
!
” Jacket!

Gil saw him fingering the trigger. “Ease off, Ivan. We only got twenty rounds. I don’t want you wasting my ammo.”

Dragunov moved aside with a smirk. “I can shoot as well as you.”

“I know,” Gil said, getting back behind the rifle and pulling the stock into his shoulder. “You can probably fuck as good as me too, but this ain’t fantasyland.”

Dragunov chuckled. “Do you think Claudina will still be there with the car when we get back?”

They had left Claudina with her car a half mile up the road, and she had promised to wait, but Gil didn’t expect to see her ever again. “Not even thinkin’ about it,” he said, dialing in the scope. “Why? You in love?”

Dragunov chuckled again. “Fuck you, American. I just don’t feel like walking all the way to San Vito to meet your pussy SEAL team friends.”

Gil smiled, placing the reticle on the head of the man Dragunov had referred to as Demetri. “We’ll take Kovalenko’s wheels. How’s that sound?” He squeezed the trigger and blew off most of Demetri’s head from the nose up. The body dropped beside the stone house, and Gil saw a puff of dust as the .308 ricocheted off the wall. “And down went McGinty.”

Dragunov hunkered in. “Who’s McGinty?”

“A drowned Irishman. Look sharp now. Those other pricks may have heard the round hit the house.”

They waited more than five minutes before another Chechen came out. He spotted the body near the far end of the house and turned to duck back inside, but Gil squeezed the trigger again, scoring a second head-shot that blew the Chechen’s brains into the house through the window of the backdoor. The body crashed to the floor half in and half out of the house.

“That’ll kindly spoil a man’s dinner plans.”

“You should have let me identify him,” Dragunov said. “If it was Kovalenko, we could have gotten the hell out of here.”

“It was that bald prick who shot me in the fuckin’ hand back in Messina.”

“Anton,” Dragunov growled. “Another
sukin syn
.”

“Well, he’s a dead
sukin syn
now.” Gil pulled back a little farther into the brush. “We gotta be real careful from here on. If Kovalenko knows his shit, he’ll roost in that upstairs window.”

“Can you see inside?”

“Not as well as I’d like,” Gil admitted.

“Then he won’t roost there—not if there’s any chance you can see in. He’ll move out the front to hunt us on the ground.”

“Then you’d better get Midori back on the phone. Tell her to watch if anyone comes out.”

Dragunov had Midori on the satellite phone a minute later, explaining the situation.

The bluff was high enough for Gil to see beyond the house but still low enough that the leeward defilade stretched for a hundred feet or more. The best thing Gil and Dragunov had going for them was that there was no way for Kovalenko or his men to reach any of the vehicles without falling under the gun.

“He may wait until night,” Dragunov remarked.

“Only if he’s a damn fool. For all he knows, we’ve called for backup.”

“He’s as patient as a snake.”

“Yeah, well, so am I,” Gil said. “And we’ve got the fucker boxed in. I can send you for pizza and beer if comes to that. Meanwhile, they’re stuck in there.”

“A beer sounds good,” Dragunov said. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”

“Just don’t come back drunk,” Gil said with a grin. “Last thing I need is a drunk Russian stumblin’ around in the weeds to give away my position.”

“Fuck it, then,” Dragunov said. “We’ll drink after.”

“You’re buyin’.”

KOVALENKO HAD THE
AWS rifle set up across the kitchen table on its bipod, scanning the terrain beyond the farm, but the glare of the sun on the kitchen window made it difficult to see with much detail.

“They have to be up there on the bluff,” he muttered.

“How in hell did they find us?” Vitsin wondered aloud. “There’s no way they could have followed us—none.”

“Satellite.” Kovalenko’s eye was still to the scope. “You came in a red car, remember?”

Vitsin suddenly felt very stupid for not having told Tapa—the team’s car thief—to steal something else. “Do you think that’s how?”

“That’s the American out there,” Kovalenko said, half to himself. “The damn Americans have everything. He probably had satellite surveillance in Paris too. Those fools we relied upon in the CIA are worthless. If we hadn’t needed their help planning the pipeline operation . . .”

He shook his head. “They fucked us somehow, but it doesn’t matter now. Lie down with a whore, you get what you pay for.”

“Maybe we could run for the cars,” Vitsin suggested. “Could he get all five of us?”

“We’d be dead before anyone could even turn a key.” Kovalenko wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, glancing down at Anton, who still lay half in, half out of the house, his head blown apart like a ripe watermelon. “The American has a rifle, which means his people are supplying him. And that means we don’t have all day and night.”

“For all we know,” said one of the others, a veteran named Zargan, “there could be an entire Spetsnaz team out there waiting to hit us when it gets dark. We should barricade the house.”

“Make the necessary preparations,” Kovalenko ordered. “And someone drag Robert inside so we can close the door.” Then an idea occurred to him. “Tapa, go upstairs to the bedroom and get the blanket from the bed to wrap the body.”

Tapa went up the stairs, and Kovalenko put his eye back to the scope.

Zargan used the poker from the fireplace to hook Anton’s belt and drag him the rest of the way inside. Vitsin kicked the door closed.

Tapa stepped into the bedroom, grabbing the wool blanket from the bed. A window pane shattered, and he was thrown against the wall with the force of mule kick, the ball of his shoulder joint shot completely away.

Kovalenko spotted the small dust cloud kicked up by Gil’s shot, shifted his aim a fraction of a degree and fired.

When Gil saw Tapa’s dim figure in the upstairs window, he squeezed the trigger and rolled immediately to his left, knowing that Kovalenko or someone else might be scanning the bluff. An instant later, a round cut through the air exactly where Gil’s head had been, close enough for him to feel the energy of the bullet as it passed. Both he and Dragunov pulled quickly back out of sight.

“That fucker’s fast!”

“I told you,” Dragunov said. “He’s been shooting since he was a child.”

“That was
too
fast! He sacrificed that guy to draw me out.”

Dragunov’s face was grim. “That’s why he’s called the Wolf. Kovalenko is willing to do whatever it takes to win.”

Gil sat back on his haunches, holding the sat phone in the crook of his neck and lighting a cigarette as he spoke with Midori. “Keep an eye on things,” he told her. “We’re eyes off target for the moment.”

“Nothing’s happening,” she said. “Are you hit again?”

“No.” He drew from the cigarette to settle his nerves. “But that bastard’s almost killed me three times now. I’d like to get just one shot at him.”

Dragunov reached for Gil’s smokes. “Maybe if you had waited,” he said under his breath.

“Hey, smoke your own,” Gil told him.

Dragunov gave him the finger and shook a cigarette from the pack, lighting it with a wooden match and lying back in the dry grass to stare up at the sky. “We’re going to have to fight them in the dark again. I hate fighting in the fucking dark.”