Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Every twenty seconds or so a crack from a distant rifle filled the air, and occasionally the American men manning rifles, either on the roof or on the balconies, would themselves return fire at targets in the distance.

When this happened, the men on the driveway ducked lower, but they had no choice but to continue to expose themselves to the nearby buildings while they prepped the Lighthouse grounds for the inbound V-22s.

They were only halfway finished with this task when a new sound came over the shouting of the crowds. Chavez was directing Caruso in the Highlander when the whistling noise came; he dove to the concrete of the parking circle, as did two of the CIA technicians. But the two CIA case officers from Kiev as well as Bixby did not hit the deck; instead, they just looked up for the origin of the noise.

Midas was near Bixby, and he tackled the station chief to the ground; they both crashed on the cold asphalt of the driveway, and Midas rolled on top of Bixby as an explosion ripped through the air twenty-five yards behind them. The whistling sound of supersonic shrapnel passed just over their heads.

Almost instantly, another streaking whistle filled the air and another explosion erupted, this one on the south side of the building. Windows in the Lighthouse building shattered and glass rained down into the parking circle.

“Eighty-twos!” Midas shouted into Bixby’s ear.

“Eighty-two what ?”

Midas rose to his knees. “Eighty-two-millimeter mortars! Get into the Lighthouse!” He pulled Bixby all the way up to his feet, and together with the CIA officers they started to run.

Chavez and Caruso finished moving the last Yukon, then ran for the entrance to the building. Another round crashed into the parking circle just after they returned to the relative safety of the lobby, and shrapnel shattered glass in the lobby windows.

As soon as Midas made it inside, he shouted into his radio, “Mutt, you guys get off the fucking roof! I want all other security personnel repositioned back from the windows with the best line of sight you can get on the compound walls and the streets beyond. If you see any armed target, that includes individuals armed with Molotovs, bricks, rocks, whatever, you are clear to engage. We might get overrun, but we are not going down with cold guns.”

“Roger that. Engaging,” one of the security officers transmitted, and within seconds the sound of rifle fire erupted as a target in the street was identified and engaged.

Just then a crash shook the entire building, and the sound of broken glass could be heard on the floors above. It sounded to the Delta commander as if a mortar round had hit the roof where his two men had been positioned.

“Mutt? You boys all right?”

There was no response.

“Mutt? How copy?”

The radio remained silent.

Mutt and Rex were both dead.

Just as the two men had left cover to run to the stairwell, an eighty-two-millimeter mortar round slammed onto the top corner of the building, and hot shrapnel ripped through their bodies, killing them instantly.

They were found a minute later by the two remaining operational Delta sergeants, and their bodies were dragged to cover just an instant before another shell slammed down on the roof of the Lighthouse.

Clark, Chavez, and Caruso helped Midas get the bodies down two flights of stairs and into body bags. It was backbreaking work, and mortar fire continued to rain down on the Lighthouse grounds the entire time.

As soon as the two bagged bodies were dragged to the front door, Midas turned to the Campus men.

“Forget what I said before. You boys better get yourselves some guns. Same ROEs as everybody else. Armed targets only. Got it?”

“Got it,” they all said, and they headed up the stairs to get weapons. They were happy to field the new Heckler & Koch 416s. As extensive as their firearms options were with The Campus, this was the first time any of them had fired the staple weapon of Delta Force.

Midas himself went up to the second floor and entered the large office area with a window that gave him a view of the front gate of the building, the park with the downed helicopter, and the neighborhood beyond. He scanned the distance with his rifle, hoping he’d get lucky and spot the mortar position.

Bixby was with him now, speaking into his sat phone to Langley. “We’ve got inbound mortar fire. Effective RPG and small-arms fire as well. We have multiple KIA and WIA. It looks like we are being engaged by trained irregular forces and possibly Russian military.”

Chavez knelt in an office on the second floor of the Lighthouse; his eyes peered through the holographic sight of his HK416 rifle. A red dot was superimposed on the glass lens of the sight, and even though the sight was not magnified, he was able to make out individuals running around on the streets in front of the front gate.

He saw his first weapons in the crowd within seconds. Two men with AK-47 assault rifles low by their sides pushed through the thick crowd of angry rioters.

On Chavez’s right, Dom Caruso was scanning a different sector of the crowd. Dom said, “I’ve got a dude with a rifle. Fifteen yards to the right of the helo crash. He’s right in the thick of all the noncombatants there.” Dom growled in frustration. “No shot.”

Ding said, “I’ve got two guys with guns. They are mixed in with the crowd in the street to the north of the park. These guys are using the civvies to get right up to the gate.”

Dom said, “They’re going to try to bust through, aren’t they?”

Chavez said, “Bust through. Climb over. Whatever. Yeah. They are coming in.”

“What’s this all about?” Dom asked.

Clark entered the room with Bixby. They knelt down behind a desk to stay out of the line of fire of any snipers. Clark said, “I’ve got a theory.”

Bixby said, “I want to hear it.”

“The Russians want to overrun this place and bust a CIA operation in the Crimea. They are going to use it to justify an invasion.”

Bixby said, “The existence of this place isn’t enough to justify an invasion, not even for Volodin.”

Clark peered through the sight of his rifle. “Maybe not yet, but if Talanov does another one of his false flag attacks, like he did with Biryukov or Golovko, then he can blame the American interlopers for it.” Clark added, “If we can get out of here and demo our stuff, we won’t make it so easy for them to frame the CIA in their scheme.”

Bixby said, “So what you’re saying is, as long as they have us and our equipment to use as proof, we are just as good to them dead or alive.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

A school bus pulled into view on the far side of the park. Both Ding and Dom tracked it with their weapons as it came up the road, past the burning helicopter wreckage. It began picking up speed; the driver seemed to have no concern about the men and women protesting in the street. The rioters dove out of the way of the accelerating vehicle.

It was quiet in the second-floor office as the men watched it approach. Finally, Caruso spoke in a deadpan voice. “Right on, this guy is coming to save us.” It was an attempt at gallows humor. He knew this wasn’t a rescue—this bus only signaled the beginning of the next phase of the attack.

The bus slammed into the iron gate of the Lighthouse, smashing it in, even tearing some of the stone wall away as it broke through. It tried to keep going up the driveway, but Ding, Dom, and several other rifles in the three-story building all began firing into the driver’s side of the windshield, and the bus veered sharply to the right and crashed against the inside wall of the compound.