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  Orlov stood alone and unarmed on a pile of rubble, holding up his arms. In supplication? In surrender? Or as a command to stop?

  If it was the latter, Vassilev was astounded to see it work. The leading tank rumbled to a halt a bare ten meters from the lone rebel. The others flanking it slowed and came to a halt. For a moment the bombardment ceased, and the incessant pounding of the shelling was silenced, allowing only for the sounds of the burning town and the shattered populace to filter through.

  The turret of the lead tank opened and a man with a cold, hard face like a slab of frozen meat appeared. His face split in a malicious grin, and he raised a microphone to his lips, the sound coming from a loudspeaker hidden in the body of the vehicle.

  “Little man, are you Aleksandr Orlov?”

  “I am,” Orlov yelled back. “I command you to stop. This is an independent state, and we have valuable resources, the destruction of which will bring down on you and your government international opprobrium.”

  “Words. Words, you stupid little man. I am General Sergei Azhkov, and I will be alive to explain myself while you are dead. What use are all your resources to you then?”

  “History will judge me,” Orlov yelled, a sob in his voice.

  “History will forget you. And what will you care? You won’t be here,” Azhkov said with a shrug, disappearing back down into his tank with a terrible finality.

  Vassilev realized that the rebel leader had no plan, only madness. The confrontation would write his death warrant, and the Georgian had no intention of being around to get caught up in the proceedings. He turned and headed back into town, picking up the pace in anticipation of what would happen next.

  It was inevitable. The bombardment started again with an unannounced suddenness that mirrored its temporary cessation. The Georgian scrambled over ruins, and back into streets that were lit by flame, the walls of once secure and safe dwellings falling around him. The town was deserted now, the people either dead under the rubble or pulled back to those parts where the shells had not yet reached, perhaps—hopefully—on their way to the road that led out of the town and into the safety of the hills. He didn’t blame them, but hoped to God that their flight would not interfere with his own passage to the rendezvous point.

  He did not see Orlov stand firm on his small platform of rubble, arms aloft, trying to hold back the tide of history as it swept over him, the general ordering his tank to plow straight ahead, regardless of whatever lay in its path. Even if some of what lay in that path was human and alive.

  The tank track plowed the rebel leader into the rubble that lay beneath him. His cries and screams—as much of frustration as of pain—were lost in the sounds of the tank engine and the crunching of debris. His presence did not register as so much as a bump to those who sat within the tank. They did not notice as they passed; the rebels were unimportant. All that mattered now was finishing the job they had started.

  And Vassilev was not the only one who needed to get out before they had achieved that aim.

  * * *

  BOLAN TOOK POINT as the group left the factory.

  Basayev and Krilov carried Dostoyevsky, while Freeman took the dead Bulgarin’s SMG, and after a crash course from Leonard accompanied the older security man as the guard for the survey team.

  Ironically, despite the fact that they were carrying wounded and were down on combat experience, they found it easy to negotiate the streets and alleys that took them out of Argun-Martan and into the area leading toward the lower hills of the Caucasus. They were not alone. They appeared to be joining an exodus from the town as the survivors who were able to move swiftly rushed past them, their possessions on their backs or loaded into carts as the streets were impassable for cars. The mercenaries were still in rebel dress, but they and the Americans were ignored, apart from a few muttered oaths and curses directed at them in the misplaced belief they were part of the National Socialists.

  It was a complete capitulation. As Bolan and the others left the town behind them and trekked across the flat plain to the foothills, they could hear the town’s buildings collapsing, the roar of fire, shell detonation and falling masonry a constant backdrop. They were accompanied part of the way by some of the townspeople, and even a couple of rebel fighters, who did not give them a second glance as an enmity had ended with the destruction of the town.

  As they reached the foothills, and the sun started to rise, the crowds thinned out as the townspeople dispersed to farmsteads where their family and friends would take them in until the battle died down.

  Bolan took in the sunrise and checked his watch. They were well past the rendezvous time, and he would have been surprised if Jack Grimaldi had hung around. There would be a Russian air force presence in the region, and it wouldn’t be politic for Dragonslayer to be caught in flight.

  “We’ve missed him, right?” Basayev said, seeing Bolan’s expression.

  The soldier nodded. “It’s okay. We had a contingency plan. If all else fails we make camp, and Jack tries again on the twenty-four-hour mark.”

  The Chechen eyed the skies. “Maybe a good idea, maybe not. We can hide okay, I guess, but I’m not sure....” He trailed off and looked down at Dostoyevsky, who was only semiconscious on the improvised stretcher.

  Bolan nodded grimly. “We’ll just have to hope.”

  “Maybe not,” Krilov commented, his face rapt in concentration. “Listen...”

  The sound of a chopper was cutting through the background noise, and before Bolan had a chance to answer the Chechen mercenary, Grimaldi piloted his craft through a narrow channel in the hills, skirting so low that the backwash of his blades almost cut them down as he approached.

  The chopper swept over them, lowering its fuselage as far as possible. A nylon rope ladder whipped in the crosswinds of the downdraft. Leonard grabbed it and held it steady, indicating to Basayev and Krilov that one of them should go first. After an exchange of glances, Krilov scaled the ladder, leaving Basayev with Dostoyevsky.

  “I like your pilot, boss, he’s as crazy as you,” the Chechen yelled at Bolan over the noise of the engines. “Listen, I’ll stay down and go last when you’ve got him up there,” he added, gesturing to the prone fighter.

  Leonard came across to them. “You go after my people,” he said to Bolan. “I’ve told Freeman to get them in order. I’ll help with this guy.” He gestured to Dostoyevsky. “Your shoulder won’t let you be of any use right now.”

  Bolan nodded curtly. Meanwhile, the Chechen in the chopper had lowered a harness, which enabled the survey team to ascend quickly, one-by-one. Bolan went after Freeman, when the young man had gotten his people aboard. By the time that Leonard and Basayev had gotten the wounded mercenary aboard and were coming up themselves, Bolan was in the cockpit with Grimaldi.

  “You had me worried there, Sarge,” the Stony Man pilot said in a laconic tone that said otherwise. “Few scratches on the way back, I see.”

  “You surprised me— I was ready to settle everyone in for the day. Occupational hazard,” he added, indicating the wound.

  “I was here at the time,” Grimaldi told him. “You weren’t, and I did head back. But it looked a little heated in the town, so I cut you some slack. You were lucky—it was my last pass. I stripped her bare as possible, too. I figured we’d be carrying just over a full load.”

  “Should have been,” Bolan said with a tinge of regret. “The hostages must have lost one before we arrived, I guess. No time to ask. And we lost two, with one MIA.”

  “Those are good odds considering what’s going down.” Grimaldi shrugged as he turned Dragonslayer and headed for the border.

  “I guess so,” Bolan affirmed, although it hurt that there would be one family who would not be welcoming their boy home.

  * * *

  CNN ANNOUNCED LATER that day that a U.S.-endorsed mission
by the Russian army had resulted in the rebel Chechen forces being routed and a party of civilian American mining personnel being rescued and returned safely to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. This operation had been planned between the two countries as a gesture of friendship after U.S. mining interests had reported finding vast new mineral reserves around the town of Argun-Martan, and had unfortunately found themselves innocently caught up in a nationalist uprising.

  The U.S. government, the U.S. mining industry and the Russian government had worked together in cooperation to seal the financial union the corporations had formed with the Russian ministry, personally overseen by the Russian president, to forge a deal for co-development of the sites.

  Two days later, the same channel reported on the arrival home of the rescued mining party, although no reporter thought to ask why they had flown in from Georgia rather than Moscow.

  There was a man in a bar in Tblisi who knew why.

  Vassilev raised a glass to them, glad that he had been able to hike to the border after seeing the chopper recede into the distance and wondering if he still had Cooper’s contact number so that he could get his money.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460321720

  First edition November 2013

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Andy Boot for his contribution to this work.

  REBEL BLAST

  Copyright © 2013 by Worldwide Library

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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