Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (32 page)

From time to time bullets hissed over their heads or shredded the bushes and
thickets off on either flank. All four of the mercenaries deployed in a line
behind them were shooting now—firing occasional bursts into the field to force
their unseen quarry toward the ambush set to kill them.

Smith's breathing was becoming labored under the strain and physical
exertion imposed by crawling so far and so rapidly. He concentrated on
following Peter as closely as he could—watching carefully to see where the
older man put his elbows and feet to avoid disturbing the vegetation through
which they were moving.

Suddenly Peter froze. For long seconds he stayed absolutely motionless,
watching and listening. Then, slowly and carefully, he held out one gloved hand
and waved Jon forward to his side.

Smith peered cautiously through a screen of tall grass, studying the terrain
in front of them. They were very near the northern edge of the field. The
weathered and rotting remnants of an old rail fence stretched to the east and
west. Just beyond the broken-down fence, the ground fell

away gently into a little hollow before rising
again in a low embankment that ran off to the northeast. A few patches of scrub
brush and small birch trees dotted the forward slopes of this rise, but the
countryside was generally more open here —offering less cover and concealment.

Peter jabbed a finger toward this elevation. Then he made the hand signal
for “enemy.”

Smith nodded. That embankment was a likely spot for the ambush they were
being herded toward. Anyone stationed just behind its crest would have decent
fields of observation and fire along most of this side of the rundown farm. He
frowned. The odds against them were stacking up fast.

Peter saw the look on his face and shrugged. “Can't be helped,” he
murmured. He pulled the spent magazine for his MP5 out of the ammo pouch on his
combat vest. He waited while Jon followed suit.

“Very well,” Peter said very quietly. “Here's the plan.”
He held up the empty magazine. “As a distraction, we toss these as far to
the right as we can. Then we make a dash over the crest, turn right, and
assault along the reverse slope—killing hostiles we meet.”

Smith stared back at him. “That's it?”

“There's no time for anything fancy, Jon,” the Englishman told him
patiently. “We must hit them hard and fast. Speed and audacity are the
only cards we have to play. If either of us goes down, the other must press on
without him. Agreed?”

Smith nodded. He did not like any of this, but the other man was right. In this
situation, any delay—for any reason, even helping an injured friend—would be
fatal. They were so heavily outnumbered that their only chance of escape was to
fight their way through anyone in front of them and then keep on moving.

Holding the empty magazine in his left hand and gripping the 1VIP5 in his
right, he rose slowly to one knee, getting ready to rush across the tumbledown
fence and the open ground beyond it. Beside him, Peter did the same.

Another burst of random gunfire broke out behind them. It faded, leaving
only silence.

“Here we go,” Peter hissed. “Get ready. Set. Now?”

Both men hurled the empty clips as hard as they could, flinging
them high into the air and off to the right. The curved metal magazines landed
with a rustle and a clatter—suddenly loud in the night.

Instantly Smith jumped up and ran forward. He dived straight over the
split-rail fence, hit the ground rolling, and bounced back up on his feet with
Peter just a few yards away.

Smith heard startled shouts from behind them and off to the right, but the
enemy had spotted them too late. Still running flat out, he and Peter charged
up the gentle slope and over the top of the low rise.

Smith spun immediately to the right, submachine gun gripped in both hands,
searching for targets in the weird green half-light supplied by his
night-vision gear. There! He saw a shape moving beneath the low-hanging
branches of a birch tree less than ten yards away. It was a man, who had been
lying prone peering over the crest, turning frantically toward them —trying to
bring his own weapon, an Uzi, to bear.

Reacting faster, Jon swung his own MP5 on-target and squeezed the trigger,
sending three 9mm rounds into the enemy gunman at point-blank range. All three
slammed home with tremendous force. The impact hurled the man backward. He slid
to the ground and lay splayed against the chalk-white trunk of the birch tree.

They glided on, following the embankment as it angled northeast and
separating as they moved so that no single enemy burst could hit them both. The
slope on this side was a mix of birch trees, scrub pines, and clumps of brush,
all broken up by tiny patches of open ground. Confused by the sudden burst of
shooting, the four mercenaries deployed as “beaters” to drive them
into the ambush were firing wildly now—flaying the wrong side of the rise.
Bullets ricocheting off trees tumbled high overhead, buzzing angrily like bees.

Smith moved cautiously into a small clearing and caught a sudden flicker of
movement out of the corner of his right eye. He spun around and saw the
blackened barrel of an M16 assault rifle poking out from behind a vine-covered
tree stump. It was traversing in his direction! He threw himself down just as
the hidden gunman fired. One 5.56mm round grazed his left shoulder, tearing a bloody
gash through cloth and skin. Two more rifle bullets tore long furrows through
the earth close by.

Jon rolled away, desperately trying to shake the enemy rifleman's aim. More
rounds followed him, again slashing at the ground only inches away from his head.
Still rolling, he looked for cover—any kind of cover-within reach. There was
nothing. He was trapped out in the open.

And then Peter appeared behind him and opened fire, methodically hammering
the tree stump with controlled bursts. Pieces of bark and shredded vine flew
away through the air. The hidden rifleman screamed once, a piercing shriek, and
then fell silent.

“Are you all right, Jon?” Peter called softly.

Smith checked himself over. The graze on his shoulder was bleeding and it
would hurt like hell soon enough. But miraculously that was the only wound he
had taken.

“I'm okay,” he reported, still breathing hard as he recovered from
the shock of nearly being gunned down so easily. Moving out into that clearing
had been a big mistake, he realized —the kind of screwup raw recruits made in
training. He shook his head once, angry with himself for the error.

“Then go make sure that bastard's really down and dead. I'll cover
you,” Peter said urgently. “But do it quickly.”

“On my way.” Smith scrambled back to his
feet and moved out of the little space of open ground, circling through the
undergrowth to come at the tree stump from behind and out of the Englishman's
field of fire. He pushed cautiously through a tangle of tall brush and saw a
body on the ground, facedown. The M16 lay several feet away.

Was the gunman really dead or badly wounded or only lying doggo?

he wondered. For a moment, Jon thought about firing
a quick burst into the body to finish the job. His finger tightened on the
trigger. Then he eased off, with a frown. In the heat of battle, he could gun
down an enemy without hesitating, but he would not shoot someone who might be
lying helpless and in terrible pain. Not and stay true to the oaths he had
sworn and, perhaps more important, to his own sense of right and wrong.

Smith stepped closer, sighting along the barrel of the MP5. He could see
blood on the ground, trickling out from under the man's body. The fallen
rifleman was short and wiry, with a dusting of cropped reddish hair on the back
of his small round head. Jon drew nearer still, preparing to bend down and feel
for a pulse.

More gunshots rang out from somewhere not far ahead. They were answered immediately
by a short burst from Peter's weapon.

Distracted, Smith turned his head to try to see where the fire was coming
from. He crouched lower, seeking cover.

That was when the “dead” man lunged at him, hurling himself
forward with lightning speed. He slammed headlong into Jon's stomach and
knocked him down. The submachine gun went flying off into the bushes.

Smith writhed away and saw a knife driving toward him. He rolled to the side
and came back up, just in time to block another thrust with the outer edge of
his left arm. The blade sliced through his sleeve and slashed the skin beneath.
It grated off the bone, sending a wave of pain flaming through his mind. He
forced the agony aside and struck back with the edge of his right hand, hacking
down hard on the red-haired man's wrist.

The knife fell out of the man's suddenly paralyzed fingers.

Smith kept moving, reversing his strike—slamming his right elbow straight
back into the shorter rifleman's nose. He felt a sickening crunch as the impact
shattered pieces of cartilage, driving them upward and into his enemy's brain.
The red-haired man dropped without a sound and lav motionless, dead for real
this time.

Jon sat back, breathing deeply. He could feel blood dripping from the deep
gash on his left arm. I had better bind that up now, he thought dully.

No point in leaving a blood trail for the bad guys to follow. He shook out a
field dressing from one of the pockets on his vest and quickly wound the gauze
and cotton around the injured arm.

There was a soft whistle from the woods. He looked up as Peter loomed out of
the darkness.

“Sorry about that,” Peter said. “Another one popped his head
up and took a shot at me.”

“Did you nail him?”

“Oh, yes,” Peter said with satisfaction. “Well and
truly.” He dropped to one knee and rolled the red-haired man Smith had
killed over onto his back. Peter's pale blue eyes widened slightly at the sight
of the man's face, and he sucked in his breath.

“You recognize that guy?” Jon asked, watching his reaction.

Peter nodded. He looked up with a grim, worried expression on his weathered
face. “Fellow's name was McRae,” he said softly. “When I knew
him he was a trooper in the SAS. Had a reputation as a troublemaker—very good in any fight, a very nasty bastard out of one. Several
years back he crossed the line once too often and got himself booted out of the
regiment. Last I heard, he was working as a mercenary
in Africa and Asia—with the occasional bit of
freelance work for various intelligence services.”

He got up and went over to retrieve Smith's submachine gun.

“Including MI6?” Jon asked quietly, taking the weapon from him and
climbing stiffly to his feet.

Peter nodded reluctantly. “On occasion.”

“Do you think some of your people in London could be involved in this covert war
Pierson and Burke are running?” Smith said.

Peter shrugged. “At the moment, I don't really know what to think,
Jon.” He looked up as the rippling chatter of automatic weapons fire
crashed out again from the other side of the low embankment. "But for now,
our friends over there are getting restless. And they'll be coming in

this direction in force very soon. I think we'd
best break contact while we can. We need to find a place where we can safelv
arrange new transport."

Smith nodded. That made good sense. By now, their enemies were sure to have
found the cars they had brought with them from Andrews Air Force Base. Trying
to retrieve the two vehicles would only mean walking back into the trap they
had just escaped.

He felt the dressing on his left arm, checking to make sure it had not yet
soaked all the way through. It was still dry on the outside. He turned back to
the Englishman. “Okay, lead on, Peter. I'll keep an eye on the rear.”

The two men turned and trotted north, fading deeper into the darkened
countryside—keeping to the shelter of the trees and tall brush whenever
possible. Behind them, the harsh, echoing rattle of gunfire slowly died away.

The first burst of automatic weapons fire outside the farmhouse brought Kit
Pierson to her feet in a rush. Drawing her service pistol, a 9mm Smith &
Wesson, the FBI agent moved rapidly to the window, peering out through the
narrow slit between the drapes. She could not see anything, but the sound of
gunfire continued, echoing loudly across the low, rolling hills of the Virginia countryside.
Heart pounding, she crouched lower. Whatever was going on had all the hallmarks
of a pitched battle being fought close by.

“Trouble, Kit?” she heard Hal Burke say with a nasty edge in his
voice.

Pierson glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes widened. The square-jawed
CIA officer had drawn his own weapon, a Beretta. And he held it aimed right at
her.

“What kind of game are you playing, Hal?” she demanded, holding
perfectly still—all too aware that, drunk or not, he could not miss at this
range. Her mouth felt dry. She could see beads of sweat forming on Burke's
forehead. The muscles around his right eye twitched slightly.

“This is no game,” he snapped back. “As I'm sure you
know.” He motioned with the muzzle of the Beretta. “Now I want you to
put your weapon down on the floor—but carefully . . . very carefully. And then
I want you to sit back down in your chair. With your hands
where I can see them.”

“Take it easy, Hal,” Pierson said softly, trying hard to conceal
her fear and her sudden conviction that Burke had lost his grip on reality.
“I don't know what you think I've done, but I promise you that—”

Her words were drowned by another burst of shooting from outside the house.

“Do what I say, damn it!” the CIA officer growled. His finger
tightened dangerously on the trigger. “Move!”

Feeling ice-cold, Pierson slowly knelt and put her Smith & Wesson down
on the floor, butt first.

“Now, kick it toward me—but do it gently!” Burke ordered.