Authors: Dale Brown
Northeastern Moldova
T
he enthusiasm the Moldovan police showed made Nuri feel a little guilty as he watched them fan out around the property. The large size of the contingent did have one advantage—it allowed them to completely ring the property. They set up roadblocks about a mile away from the driveway up to the main house, out of sight of the video cameras protecting the farm. They also moved quickly, quietly, and efficiently, splitting up so it would have been difficult for a casual observer to realize how many policemen had flooded into the area.
Lacu set up a command station off the side of the main road about two kilometers from the property. The spot was on a hill, which allowed them to see the front quarter of the house, as well as the large building nearby where the Wolves had run their training session. Standing on the roof of Lacu’s car, they could make out some of the grounds on the side. The Whiplash strike team was out of sight.
“Who are the owners of this house?” the deputy minister asked as he and Nuri passed a set of infrared night vision glasses back and forth.
“I can’t remember off the top of my head,” said Nuri. It was an honest answer, though it wouldn’t have been very hard for him to look it up. “I thought maybe you would know the property.”
“No,” said Lacu. He sounded relieved.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s owned by Russians,” suggested Nuri.
“I think that’s a very good possibility,” said Lacu.
So there was the story they would use. Nuri would just let the deputy minister fill in the blanks.
“When shall we bring in the armored car?” asked Lacu.
“Hold it in reserve,” Nuri told him. The car, which drove fairly slowly, was still about a few kilometers away. “Our team will try and get the men to surrender without gunfire.”
“Without gunfire? None at all?”
“That would be the hope.”
Lacu seemed impressed. He took the glasses and turned them toward the house, studying it and the surrounding property.
“I don’t see any of your men,” said Lacu.
“You will soon enough.”
Northeastern Moldova
D
anny looked at his watch. It was now past five o’clock. It would be light soon. And the Russians from town whom Nuri had bugged would be coming out at seven, if they held to their plan. They had to move ahead.
The two men were still in the upstairs room, watching TV.
“Tiny, can you talk?” Danny asked.
“Yes,” answered the trooper. He’d moved back to the side of the room, far from where the men were.
“What’s your status?”
“I loosened the coupling on the duct and I think I can slip the gas nozzle inside,” he said. “I can tape around it and make it airtight. It’ll make a little noise, though.”
“Get ready to do it. But wait for my signal.”
Danny had the team outside take their positions for an immediate attack.
Plan A was to use the gas, knock everyone out, then systematically hog-tie them and cart them off.
Plan B was to go in hard, with or without the gas. Charges had been set against the wall at the guardroom, and two Whiplashers were ready to blow them and overwhelm the guards if they survived the explosion. Grenade launchers were aimed at the windows of the occupied dorm rooms; tear gas would be shot inside as the team rushed the building from below. With access to the armory cut off, they would invite the others to surrender, and proceed accordingly if they didn’t.
That was the backup plan. Things would be easier if the gas worked.
“We’re ready,” said Boston.
“Set up and start pumping,” Danny told Tiny. He turned to Flash. “You think we can increase the amount of electricity going into the building without blowing the circuit?”
“Piece of cake,” said Flash.
He opened the panel on the laptop controlling the electrical regulator and edged it up slightly. It had an immediate effect—the volume on the television increased loud enough for Danny to hear it over Tiny’s mike.
By the time the two men had turned it down, Tiny had the gas canisters in place next to the air duct. He began taping the nozzle into the hole.
With the tanks hooked up, Tiny crawled over to the air handler and undid the panel protecting the wiring. He short-circuited the thermostat control with a pair of alligator clips, kicking on the fan.
It took five minutes for the gas to empty from the canisters. By then Danny was feeling the fatigue of the long day. He leaned over Flash’s shoulder and looked at the screen.
“Show me floor one,” he said. “The control room.”
“They’re still at their stations.”
“Awake?”
“Looks like it.”
“What about upstairs?”
Everyone there seemed to be sleeping, but then they had been before the gas. On the third floor, the two men in the TV room were on the couch, still fidgeting, still awake.
Another ten excruciating minutes passed as Danny gave the gas time to work. Nothing seemed to change.
“It should be at maximum effect by now,” said Flash.
The specialist who’d prepared the gas had calculated it would work almost immediately, since there were air ducts in each room. Within five minutes the concentrations throughout the house, with the exception of the basement and the attic, should be more than high enough to put a person out.
It had worked as well as it was going to.
“We go in hard on my mark,” said Danny. “Ready?”
Each team reported back.
“All right,” he said, gripping his SCAR-H/MK–17 rifle. “Three, two, one—”
The charges blew out a large hunk of the wall. A frag grenade followed, eliminating any possibility that the two guards would be able to sound an alarm or fight back. Danny wasn’t about to hang this operation on flash-bangs.
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled as he saw the smoke from the blasts.
The team swarmed into the building. Danny told MY-PID to bring the Rattlesnakes up. Guided by the computer, the unmanned helicopters took off from the staging area two kilometers away and rushed toward the site, spreading out as they went so they could encircle the property.
Tiny went to the attic opening, a panel in the ceiling of the room next to the one with the television. He pulled it open and jumped down, pausing to adjust his night goggles, which had slipped on his face. As he did, he was blinded by a flash of light. Instinctively, he reached for his weapon.
G
unfire erupted through the building.
“People moving out of the bedrooms!” warned Flash.
“Secure the stairways!” yelled Danny.
In the next second there was a loud explosion on the second story. Something flew out of the wall—two of the Wolves, jumping from the house.
T
he deputy minister turned to Nuri as the gunfire erupted.
“I thought you said it would be done without gunfire,” said Nuri.
“They’re trying.”
One of the Rattlesnakes buzzed overhead.
“What was that?” asked Lacu.
“A helicopter.”
“There are three of them.”
“Yes.”
“They look—very small.”
“They are. They’re flown by remote control.”
“Are they necessary?”
As if in answer, the gunfire at the house stoked up.
“I don’t think it’s going too well,” said Lacu.
“No, no, it’s going according to plan,” said Nuri.
In the next moment a rocket was fired from the ground. Nuri looked up to see one of the UAVs turn into a fireball.
D
anny saw the men jumping from the building, but they ran so fast he couldn’t even raise his gun to fire. He jumped to his feet but then fell back as a series of explosions rocked the ground. Missiles began firing from the woods—antiaircraft weapons that had been secreted so well in the trees they hadn’t detected them. One took down a nearby Rattlesnake; the others crisscrossed in the air, trying to find the other targets.
The Rattlesnakes shot flares, ducking away from the attack. By the time they regrouped, the two men who’d escaped the house were inside the training building.
Gunfire began raining from one of the windows on the second floor. Danny pumped a grenade inside, then ducked as the bullets somehow continued to fly.
Who the hell were these guys?
T
iny felt himself falling to the ground, shaken by the force of several explosions. He rolled to his stomach and groped for his weapon, sure that he was about to be killed at any moment.
The light that had blinded him came from a flash-bang grenade prepositioned in the hallway. A string of them exploded on every floor of the house, designed to break up an attack.
Tiny tried to shake off the confusion. He pushed himself to his feet, then crouched back down, still without his bearings. The circuitry in the goggles had recovered, but his eyes hadn’t, and smoke pouring into the room made it even harder to see.
“Bean, Bean, what the fuck?” he shouted.
Not hearing a response, he reached up and found his ear set missing. His microphone was gone as well—the entire headset had blown off his head when he fell. He pulled it back up, cupping his hand over his ear as he tried to make sense of the cacophony of voices competing over the Whiplash frequency.
“There are three people moving toward the stairs on the second floor,” Flash was warning. “Three people.”
“What about the third floor? Third floor,” said Tiny.
If there was an answer, it was overrun.
Tiny moved back to the door, then threw himself out into the hallway. Smoke was curling everywhere. He began crawling forward on his elbows, moving to the room where the men had been watching TV.
The door was open. He pushed his shoulder against the wall, sidling up the doorjamb. Then he flew forward into the open space, half expecting to be met by machine-gun fire.
Nothing happened. He rose on one knee and saw the two men on the couch, passed out or dead, he couldn’t tell.
Tiny jumped up and ran to the couch. Holding the barrel of his gun at the head of the man on the right, he reached into his back pocket and grabbed the heavy-duty zip-tie cuffs. He reached down and pulled the man’s wrists together, locking them. Then he went around the couch and tied the man’s legs.
Tiny was just starting to rise when something hit him on the side of the head. He flew across the room, against the wall. The force of the blow took his breath away.
He’d been hit by the man whom he had handcuffed. Hands and feet still bound, dazed from the gas but not completely unconscious, the man rose from the couch. He shook his head several times, then raised his arms in front of his chest. He tugged at the restraints. They gave on his first pull.
Tiny pushed to his left, trying to escape. He found his rifle on the floor in front of him and grabbed it, rearing back to fire as he moved away.
Something flew at him, then gripped his ankle. It felt like an iron clamp, squeezing against his bones, crushing them.
It was the Wolf. Tiny flailed with his elbow and the butt of the gun. He hit the man’s face and felt the grip loosen. Then something pounded his left side. He pushed up the gun and began to fire.
The bullets crashed through the man’s face, shattering his nose and the bones of his forehead. But his attacker continued to pound his side. The pain was excruciating. Tiny collapsed as the gun clicked empty.
He lay on his back for what seemed like hours, unable to breathe. Finally he felt himself being pulled to his feet.
“Bean, Bean, get the other guy,” he croaked. He turned, looking over his shoulder.
It wasn’t Bean. It was one of the Wolves.
Tiny was too weak to resist.
“G
ot two more guys going to the window,” Flash shouted to Danny.
Danny rose and pumped a 40mm grenade into the open window. He saw the flash and smoke, then watched dumbfounded as a man jumped through the window toward him.
He raised his rifle and began firing. The first few bullets hit square in the man’s chest, but didn’t slow him down. It was only as the bullets came up and struck the man’s neck and face that there was any noticeable effect. The man wobbled, then spun and fell to the ground.
Just in time. Danny’s magazine was empty.
“Hit them in the face,” Danny said over the radio.
“MY-PID says they’re moving to the tunnel,” yelled Flash. “They may be trying to leave the property.”
“Nuri—you on the line?” asked Danny. “Nuri?”
There was no answer.
“Can you get Nuri?” Danny asked Flash.
“I’m trying.”
“Boston, move up,” Danny said over the radio. “I’m going back to the perimeter where the tunnel opens.”
For a few seconds there was no answer. Finally, Boston acknowledged. Danny jumped to his feet and began running for the woods.
N
uri couldn’t see everything that was going on at the house, but it was pretty obvious the situation had not gone even remotely like they’d planned.
The deputy minister was walking back and forth near the armored car, wringing his hands as if they were sodden dish towels. His enthusiasm had quickly waned, and his frown grew longer as the gunfire continued.
“It won’t be too long,” said Nuri. “They’ll be done any second.”
Nuri’s sat phone saved him from Lacu’s dubious glare.
“What’s going on?” he asked as the line connected.
“Close down the tunnel entrance,” said Flash, shouting to make himself heard over the gunfire. “Blow it up!”
“Blow it up? Where is it?”
“Two hundred meters from the southeast corner, near the road. The sewer grate. You’re only about seventy meters from it.”
“You want us to ambush them as they come out?”
“Destroy it!”
Nuri turned to Luca.
“There’s a storm sewer near the road up in that direction,” he said, getting his bearings. “We have to destroy it.”
“A sewer? Why?”
“To cut off the escape,” said Nuri. “We need the armored car.”
He began trotting up the road. The grate wasn’t easy to find; he had to pull out the MY-PID control unit for a reference, and even then almost missed it in the low brush.
“There are no shells,” said Luca. “The only gun is the 7.2 machine gun.”
“The big gun isn’t loaded?”
“No shells.”
“Roll the armored car wheel over the opening,” said Nuri, without time to argue. “We can at least do that, right?”
Instead of waiting for an answer, he ran to the truck and started waving at the commander, who was sitting at the top turret.
“Go on the sewer hole. Move!” yelled Nuri, first in English, then in his rickety Moldovan. “Go. Go! Forward!”
T
he gunfire seemed to calm as Danny ran toward the woods in the direction of the tunnel exit. He’d taken a few steps when he realized he had momentarily forgotten where the minefield was. The prudent thing to do would have been to stop and ask MY-PID for help. But his brain was racing, and he plunged on, running toward the trees.