Don Pendleton - Oceans Of Fire

Price’s brow knitted. “These are Russian gangsters. They’re known for their sticky fingers. I doubt they’d leave behind three custom-made, Asbeck-armored VIP specials. You’re looking at over half a million dollars’ worth of rides.”

“You know, you’re both right.” Everyone in the War Room could almost hear Jack Grimaldi grinning behind the stick of his helicopter as things fell into his area of expertise. “Zhol owns construction companies, and this is Tajikistan. Ninety-nine percent of the country is mountain or desert, and the roads are so bad that almost any company that can afford it does their major hauling with helicopters rather than trucks. I’m betting Zhol has one or more Mi-26 Halos hot on the pad in some clearing outside the capital. The Halo’s the most powerful helicopter on Earth. It’s like a C-130 Hercules except with rotors. We’re talking large-cargo clamshell loading doors in the back and a maximum payload of 44,000 pounds plus.”

“Damn it.” Price watched the three-car caravan wend its way south through the early morning traffic. “They’ll just drive their SUVs inside the chopper and take off.”

“It’s worse than that.” Kurtzman stared into middle distance as he began to crunch all the angles. “Jack’s right. Zhol owns construction companies, so he probably has access to a fleet of helicopters. He knows he’s been hit already. He’ll be taking every precaution. If Zhol hasn’t factored in possible satellite surveillance, Forbes has. They’ll have multiple helicopters.”

“A shell game.” Price watched the satellite feed as Rafael Encizo and T. J. Hawkins pulled into traffic in a Russian Tarantula off-road vehicle marked with a broad circle of infrared luminescent paint on the hood. “And we can’t be sure which vehicle the nukes are in, or if they’ve been split up.”

“That’s right,” Kurtzman said. “We’re playing nuclear poker with a Navy SEAL. The best of the best.”

“Base, this is Phoenix Two,” Encizo reported. “We have the caravan in sight. Paralleling.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix Two,” Price said. “Bear?”

“We can’t afford to let these guys get out of the city, or even into a park or city square wide enough to land a helicopter.” Kurtzman nodded and hit his comm switch. “Phoenix One, this is Bear. Take them down. Take them down now.”

“AFFIRMATIVE, BASE.” McCarter was a hundred yards behind the convoy. He wore infrared goggles beneath the visor of his helmet and he could see the white light shining off the back of the middle car. “Phoenix Flight, what is your ETA?”

“I have you in sight, Phoenix One.”

“Phoenix Two?”

“We’re parallel on Western Avenue, Phoenix One,” Encizo replied.

“All units, I’m assuming the middle car has the VIPs and the packages. I want to avoid directly attacking it if possible. We take out the guard vehicles first then try to force the main target to stop. With luck, Calvin can work some magic from the inside. Phoenix Two and Three, come from behind. Phoenix Flight, drop Phoenix Four to plug any holes.”

All units came back “Affirmative.”

McCarter slid a Farm-modified RKJ-3M grenade from his jacket and pulled the pin. “Phoenix One, beginning attack run.” The Dakar 650 snarled and spit blue smoke as the Englishman gunned the engine. McCarter’s visor beaded with mist as he shot forward through traffic like an arrow.

The RKG-3M antitank grenade was a forty-year-old design, though still a clever one. The operator threw the grenade above the tank. A small parachute deployed from the handle so that the warhead deployed nosedown against the tank’s thin upper armor. It had been used effectively in the 1973 Arab Israeli War, but its main drawback then and now was that the operator had to run up and throw the grenade at the tank. Tanks and armored vehicles generally bristled with cannons and machine guns, and their crews tended to take a very dim view of anyone running toward them with cylindrical metal objects in their hands. Antitank grenades were considered at best a last-ditch defense if not open suicide. In the twenty-first century there were few modern tanks or APCs against which the RKG-3M would still be effective even if the operator could survive to get close enough.

An unsuspecting Toyota Land Cruiser in misty morning traffic was another kettle of fish.

McCarter flew past the rear and middle cars of the convoy. He lifted his thumb and the cotter lever pinged away in his wake. He whipped in front of the lead vehicle, took a moment to match its speed and tossed the grenade back over his shoulder.

Tires screamed on the wet asphalt as the lead driver stood on his brakes. McCarter had counted on that. The grenade bounced off the windshield and landed nosedown on the hood of the vehicle.

The magnetic ring that had been welded around the edge of the cylinder-shaped grenade clacked onto the metal hood, and the parachute collapsed around the throwing handle as the grenade locked in place.

McCarter had five seconds of fuse time to get out of the ten-meter secondary fragmentation radius. The BMW Dakar screamed into the red line as the grenade detonated behind it. The copper forcing cone inside the grenade shaped the detonating 567 grams of TNT and RDX high explosive into a highly condensed jet of superheated gas and fire.

The fire shot out the wheel wells like a rocket in takeoff, and the SUV lifted off its front tires. German engineering was nothing if not efficient. The designers at Asbeck knew they couldn’t make an SUV that could withstand shaped-charge attacks, but they had worked to minimize the damage and injury to passengers. The armored box around the engine channeled the blast up and down, and kept grenade and engine fragments from ripping through the passenger compartment. Halon fire-suppression units blasted out the burning oil and fuel, and hissed against the molten metal.

The stricken SUV slammed down on the molten remains of its run-flat tires.

McCarter whipped his motorcycle around in a screaming 180-degree halt. His 10 mm Parker-Hale Personal Defensive Weapon ripped free of the Velcro holding it in its shoulder holster. He snapped the folding stock into position and shouldered the weapon as all four doors of the armored Land Cruiser flung open at once.

The red dot of McCarter’s reflex sight was a glowing white blob through his infrared goggles. The white blob coincided with the forehead of the driver, and McCarter squeezed the PDW’s trigger. Three 10 mm armor-piercing slugs opened the smuggler’s skull to the sky in a spray of brain and bone. McCarter raised his sights slightly as the driver collapsed and gunned for the man coming out of the driver’s side passenger door. The Briton’s first burst clipped the killer’s shoulder and spun him, the second took him in the side of the face and rippled his head into ruins.

McCarter stood and shot. The men who leaped out of the passenger doors died even as they tried to level their automatic weapons. “Lead vehicle down! Hostiles down! Phoenix Two, attack—!”

The Phoenix Force leader swung his weapon back to the driver’s door and exchanged fire with a fifth man who popped out spraying lead from a compact assault rifle. Sparks sprayed as McCarter’s weapon mangled in his hands and his head snapped back like he’d taken a punch from a heavyweight. The Russian shooter fell with a crushed skull.

“Phoenix One!” Grimaldi shouted across the radio.

The PDW had taken two hits, and its action was dented and held open in a permanent jam. It fell from McCarter’s nerveless fingers as he toppled back across his bike.

The Briton tasted blood in the back of his throat. He ripped his helmet free and drew his Browning Hi-Power pistol. The world spun as he tried to sit up, and he fell back again. The front of his motorcycle helmet had an inch-deep crater blasted in the forehead. The copper base of a bullet gleamed from the middle of the hole. Only the ballistic ceramic insert had saved his life from the armor-piercing round.