Rebel Force Read online

  He pulled a Soviet-era RGD-5 antipersonnel hand grenade from the man’s web harness. He held his Kalashnikov by the pistol grip and stuck out his thumb. Using his free hand to help hook the pin around his extended thumb, he made a tight fist around the pistol grip of the assault rifle and pulled with his other hand, releasing the spring on grenade.

  Bolan let the spoon fly. He turned and put a warning burst down the hall fronting the game room, through the side door. He counted down three seconds and then chucked the grenade around the corner and up the stairs. He turned away from the opening as the blast was funneled by the walls up and down the staircase, spraying shrapnel in twin columns.

  Ears ringing, Bolan made for the door to the house. The door hung open, broken. From outside he heard gunfire as the enemy force engaged Sable and Sanders. A figure darted past the open door and Bolan gunned him down.

  The Executioner could see the gradual incline running beside the dacha toward the front of Sable’s property. He saw men taking positions at the corner of the house, and he fired a burst to keep them back.

  A killer flopped onto his belly and threw a bipod-mounted 7.62 mm RPK machine gun in front of him. Bolan jerked back inside the doorway as the machine gunner opened up with the weapon’s 660 rpm rate of fire, sending a firestorm in Bolan’s direction.

  Seeing no movement from the staircase, he turned and looked at the glass doors to the patio on the back lawn. Shrapnel and stray rounds had broken much of the glass, leaving jagged openings. He saw the muzzle flash of gunfire from the back wall where Sable and Sanders held their positions.

  He checked the side door to the downstairs and saw woodchips fly off in great, ragged splinters from the withering machine-gun fire. He heard the staccato beat of the weapon discharging. Sensing something, he twisted toward the staircase. A khaki-clad man with a beard rushed off the stairs.

  Bolan had the drop on him and gunned him down, stitching a line of slugs across the Chechen gunman’s chest. The man’s heel caught on the sprawled arm of a downed compatriot and he tumbled over, dead before he struck the ground.

  Bolan scrambled back from the staircase, dodging tables and furniture in the game room. He saw a flash from the stairs and felt the heat as rounds blew by his face. He fired wildly behind him for cover as he rolled across a pool table to land on the other side. He swung back around and covered the staircase and the side door, prepared to send a volley in either direction. His finger tensed on the smooth metal curve of the trigger.

  There was a lull in the firing for a moment, and Bolan heard Kubrick screaming instructions in flawless Russian.

  “Forward! Forward!” Kubrick shouted.

  Bolan stood and made to turn toward the blown-out windows facing the back lawn off the game room. As he rose from his crouch behind the pool table, dark ovals flew down the stairs.

  He threw himself flat as the grenades landed in succession on the ground past the corpses of dead rebels. The twin blasts were deafening and shrapnel whizzed through the air. Bolan knew a team would be rushing down the stairs after the grenade blasts, and he fired a ragged burst up the stairwell through the billowing plumes of dirty smoke.

  He heard an all too familiar sound and turned as a third hand grenade bounced in. Again Bolan threw himself down behind the pool table as the grenade exploded. Behind him the plasma screen television caught a stray round and exploded in a shower of sparks.

  Bolan tucked himself into a ball under the lip of the heavy pool table. He rose out his crouch slightly and set his muscular shoulder against the rim. As close as the fire teams were to his position, Bolan knew he’d never make it across the lawn to where Sable and Sanders fought. This place was his last stand.

  Bolan thrust up, pushing against the floor with his legs and heaving his back into the lift. The slate pool table was extremely heavy, and he gasped at the solid weight of the thing. He grunted savagely and pushed harder. The pool table crashed over onto its side with a profound bang and brightly colored billiards balls spilled out of the pockets and rolled wildly across the floor.

  The Executioner shifted around to one side of his barricade. He heard boots pounding on the floor a heartbeat before a weapon blast and then the sound of rounds striking the upended pool table.

  Bolan rolled onto his stomach and looked around the side of his makeshift barricade. He saw a clean shaved man in the now too familiar khaki uniform reaching down to check a gunman at his feet. Bolan put the man down with a single squeeze of the trigger.

  A gunman came through the outside door, weapon up and firing for cover as he made the hostile entry. His wild burst passed over Bolan’s head, and the Executioner returned fire with deadly accuracy.

  As Bolan spun a hand grenade came lobbing gently over the top of the table and bounced at his feet.

  20

  The Executioner dived around the edge of the overturned pool table, desperate to put the big structure between himself and the exploding grenade. Bolan was still in the air when the bomb went off, and he was knocked flat by the force of the detonation.

  He hit the floor hard and heard the lurching bang as the billiard table was picked up and then dropped by the force of the explosion. The huge, heavy table soaked up the grenade shrapnel, protecting Bolan even as it was ruined. The soldier rose, feeling dizzy and slightly disorientated.

  He sensed movement in the smoke and whirled to fire in that direction. He felt more than saw a man go down, and then he turned and stumbled toward the broken patio windows. He heard noise from the sat phone on his web harness, and then Grimaldi’s voice projected over the microphone.

  “I’m coming in, Striker.”

  “This is Striker, copy, Black Hawk. I’m coming out of the house now. I have a visual. Tell your door gunner that everything in the house is hostile. Copy?”

  “Good copy. I got eyes on you now, Striker.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” Bolan answered.

  He raced out of the house and looked up to see the helicopter landing on Sable’s back lawn. To the embattled Bolan it was as if avenging angels were coming from on high to rescue him.

  Underneath the landing gear Bolan saw Sanders and Sable rise out of their positions to make for the chopper. An unknown special operator in a visor helmet and generic OD green jumpsuit manned the helicopter’s minigun.

  Bolan made for the aircraft, running low, head down even as he heard automatic weapons fire open up from behind him. The door gunner spun the machine gun and unleashed hellfire on the stylish dacha and the gunmen inside. A sheet of flame extended from the rotating muzzles and tore into the house, shredding walls and blowing out windows.

  Bolan saw Sanders shove Sable into the helicopter cargo bay and scramble in after her. Bolan ran at an angle to keep clear of the door gunner’s line of fire. From the side of the bullet-riddled house the Chechen hardman with the RPK came around the corner.

  Bipod still extended down on the squad weapon, he triggered a blast at the helicopter. Sparks flashed as rounds struck the fuselage and the man walked his rounds up the length of the armored special operations model helicopter.

  The door gunner responded to the fire by swiveling the minigun to face the new, aggressive threat. His rounds clawed through the house and tore up gouts of earth before smashing into the hardman with brutal velocity.

  His finger still on the trigger, the man was knocked off his feet and tossed to the ground. His last burst sent rounds skipping up into the rotor blades of the Black Hawk before the big weapon fell from his lifeless fingers.

  Bolan scrambled into the cargo hold of the helicopter, slid across the floor and grabbed a seat strut. Grimaldi looked back into the bay from his seat and smiled when he met Bolan’s eyes. The soldier slipped his 9 mm pistol away and gave his old friend a thumbs-up. The aircraft shifted as Grimaldi prepared to pull the bird out of the hot landing zone.

  The minigun went silent as the door gunner slumped behind it and fell out of the open cargo door. Bolan lunged for the man but
missed as the Black Hawk suddenly lurched. He heard bullets like angry hornets rip through the open door and strike the inside of the helicopter.

  From his belly Bolan looked out the open helicopter door at Sable’s nearly demolished house. He saw Kubrick lowering the RPK machine gun he’d taken from the fallen hardman. The rogue intelligent agent’s face was twisted with a savage satisfaction. Beside Kubrick another man was already on one knee, a grenade launcher snug against his shoulder.

  Rounds ricocheted off the armored seats and swing out panels back into the troop transport area. Sable screamed as a white hot round creased her leg on the outer thigh. Sanders threw himself toward the wounded Russian woman, and more tracer fire poured in directly over his back.

  Grimaldi finished his swing so that the helicopter’s nose was aimed toward the fence at the rear of Sable’s dacha property. Bolan looked back, still on his belly, and saw the man beside Kubrick fire his rocket-propelled grenade. It shot out in a streak like a sluggish bolt of lightning and struck the Black Hawk in its tail rotor, shaking the whole aircraft frame.

  Bolan looked at the cockpit and saw blood spurt from Grimaldi’s shoulder. The veteran pilot rocked from the impact of the round but kept fighting with his controls to keep the Black Hawk on course.

  For a moment Bolan thought Grimaldi was going to pull it off.

  Another tracer round burned past Bolan’s face and clipped the reinforced pilot’s seat.

  Suddenly the helicopter swung wildly around, and it was sickeningly obvious that the pilot was no longer in control of the helicopter. Bolan felt the bottom drop away beneath him and he knew the helicopter was going down.

  He grabbed hold of the seat strut again and spread himself wide on the floor to absorb the impact. The downward pointing nose of the Black Hawk cleared the top of the fence surrounding Sable’s dacha by mere inches, and then the helicopter spun wildly to the side.

  Bolan heard Sable screaming in Russian, heard Sanders screaming Sable’s name. He caught a glimpse of the battered dacha before the fence obscured his view.

  Half a heartbeat later the Black Hawk hit.

  The belly of the bird slammed into the ground as the rotor blades tore into trees. With a wrenching sound of twisting metal the already weakened rotorhead mechanism, designed to come apart on impact, cut loose from the mainframe of the helicopter and went spinning into the woods.

  Bright flickers of yellow flame appear from the nose of the helicopter and Grimaldi slumped forward loosely, hanging against his seat restraints. Bolan pushed himself up and looked over at Sanders and Sable. The impact had knocked the ex-Soviet agent unconscious, but Bolan could detect the rise and fall of her chest as Sanders struggled to get her into a sitting position.

  Bolan reached out and grabbed the pilot seat, noting the huge tears where machine-gun rounds had struck. Using the seat as a brace, he pulled himself forward. Blood was pooling in the unconscious pilot’s lap from two bullet wounds in his right shoulder. The smell of burning rubber and mechanical fluids was sickening in the confined space of the cockpit. Bolan knew the bird could take a hard landing from as high as sixty-five feet and that the fuel system was self-sealing, so he wasn’t worried about the downed helicopter bursting into flames, at least in the next few minutes.

  Bolan felt Grimaldi’s pulse but it was rapid, weak and fluttering, indicating a frantically beating heart struggling to make up for a reduced blood volume. The man was bleeding to death.

  The soldier knew the clock was counting down on him. Kubrick had to be organizing his forces to cross the back lawn and penetrate the wooded hills where the Black Hawk had gone down. Sanders was saying something behind him, but Bolan ignored the man and snatched up the helicopter’s radio control.

  “Aviary this is Striker, over.”

  The radio responded instantly. “Striker this is Aviary, go ahead.”

  “We are down, repeat bird down. Pilot needs medevac. We have a squad of hostiles en route to our twenty, over.”

  There was moment of silence. Bolan waited for what seemed entirely too long before another voice came over the radio.

  “Striker, this is Aviary actual, over,” the voice said, indicating that the command officer of the mission was speaking.

  “Go ahead Aviary actual,” Bolan replied.

  “We are not prepped for secondary extraction.”

  “I understand. Inform my sponsorship I will be in contact at earliest convenience, per protocol, “Bolan said.

  The operational support contingent for Bolan had, by necessity been limited. Grimaldi and a crew of task force veterans working under DNI control had been staged on a refitted commercial oil freighter in the Caspian. As a last-ditch fail-safe, two F-22 Raptors staged out of Incirlik air base in Turkey had been scrambled for overflight during the extraction.

  “Copy, Striker, good luck.”

  “Striker out.”

  His eyes trailed over the cockpit instrument panel. He made sure the bird’s GPS locator was functioning. When the Raptors flew over the area, their missile guidance systems would lock on to the signal and vaporize any evidence of U.S. equipment on Chechen soil. If Bolan didn’t get Grimaldi and Sable out of there fast, they would all be vaporized.

  Assuming Kubrick’s hit squad didn’t finish them first.

  Bolan quickly grabbed a med kit. He found what he was looking for and pulled it free. Putting the packet to his lips, he bit down and tore it open.

  Bolan turned and began dumping anticoagulation powder on Grimaldi’s wounds. Even in the dim, uncertain light inside the crashed helicopter’s cockpit, the man looked deathly pale. He murmured something Bolan didn’t catch and then fell silent.

  “You’ve got to help me!” Sanders shouted from the back. “They’ve breached the fence! Sable’s hurt.”

  “Return fire with the mini,” Bolan ordered. “Once I finish giving the pilot first aid, I’ll help you fix the woman.”

  “No! Damn it! Sable is the one who’s important, do you understand? That pilot knew the risks, now leave him and help me!”

  Bolan twisted and whipped out his pistol. He snatched the startled, frantic Sanders by his collar and shoved the muzzle of his weapon into the man’s face hard enough to split his lip. Sanders squawked in protest. He yanked the man closer, and Sanders looked up into the cold blue flint of the Executioner’s eyes. He knew he was looking into the eyes of a superior man.

  “You want to save your girlfriend?” Bolan whispered. “You do exactly as I say. If you question me again, I’ll kill you where you stand. Do you understand?”

  Sanders nodded. The motion caused his teeth to click against the hard metal of the pistol muzzle, and he winced in pain.

  “Say it!” Bolan snarled. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” Sanders babbled.

  “Good, now get on that gun and keep them off us until I’m done! Go!”

  Bolan shoved Sanders in the direction of the minigun and turned to Grimaldi. The pilot was still unconscious and needed more first aid than Bolan could provide for him in the field, but his bleeding had stopped for the moment.

  He pulled out his knife, lifted the straps of the seat restraints and cut Grimaldi free of his flight harness.

  Automatic weapons fire began to strike the downed aircraft’s frame. Despite being shot down, Bolan still felt fairly confident in the helicopter’s armor protection from small arms. If not for the inbound Raptors, he might have tried to fight off the attackers, he had to get away from the wreck before it was sanitized by missile fire.

  Sanders opened up in retaliation with the mounted minigun. The substantial sound of the weapon was reassuring.

  Ignoring Sanders and the incoming rounds, Bolan kept working steadily. He pulled the injured Grimaldi from his seat and laid him out on his back on the floor of the helicopter. He moved farther into the troop transport area and pulled the injured Sable around as well.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered as he did so and she struggled to ri
se, confused. Firmly Bolan put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

  “Easy,” he said. “Let me stop the bleeding in your leg, and then we’ll get out of here.”

  “Where’s my weapon,” she asked weakly.

  “It must have been tossed clear when we hit,” he replied.

  Bolan pulled out his pistol and pressed it into her hand. She took it, gratitude showing on her face. Bolan used his knife to slit open the leg of her pants. He set the knife aside and tore the fabric free, ignoring Sable’s moan.

  He pulled a second packet of coagulation powder out and tore it open. He sprinkled a liberal amount on Sable’s wound and then quickly wrapped a pressure dressing around it. He tied it off and looked at the woman.

  “You want morphine?”

  She shook her head as she pushed herself into a sitting position. “I can’t afford to have my alertness compromised.”

  “Good, slide out and make for the woods before Kubrick surrounds us. We have to move. There’s a sanitation strike coming any minute.”

  She nodded and rolled onto her hands and one knee, trailing the hurt leg straight behind her.

  Rounds sliced the air above their heads as they maneuvered inside the downed helicopter. Sable slipped out the side cargo door and Bolan followed her. Once his feet hit the ground he turned and pulled the unconscious Grimaldi to him.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted at Sanders.

  The CIA agent had gamely manned the machine gun, attempting to use controlled bursts to save ammunition but also bring the suppressive effect of his superior rate of fire and heavier caliber into play. Sanders and saw Bolan hoist Grimaldi over his shoulder as Sable hobbled toward the tree line.

  He immediately spun away from the machine gun and slid across the floor of the cargo bay and out the open door. He raced away from the downed helicopter. Bolan was just ahead of him, muscling through the underbrush with Grimaldi.