Assassin's Tripwire

“Not merely a helicopter. It is a gunship. The Wolf makes use of many Soviet surplus Hind aircraft.”

“Not good,” Bolan said. “But I think I have a plan.”

“What is your plan, Cooper?”

“We run like hell.”

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Bolan and Yenni ran east, through the scrub and rocks, toward a defile Bolan had spotted on the topographical map.

“Where are we going?” Yenni asked. She didn’t seem winded at all, even sprinting alongside him, working harder to keep up with his long strides.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” Bolan said, casting a wary glance over his shoulder. “Slow down. Pretty soon we’re going to—”

“You are very slow. You should run faster.”

“That’s me,” he replied, not breaking stride. “Slow as molasses.” He eased the Beretta 93R from its holster, checked the selector and looked behind him once more. Somewhere high above, the whirring of the enemy helicopter was louder. He couldn’t see the Hind, if Yenni was correct. He hoped she wasn’t.

Yenni surged ahead of him by a pace, then three. He opened his mouth to warn her.

She disappeared.

Bolan dropped in behind her. The almost invisible hole she’d fallen into was nearly as deep as he was tall. He landed heavily on his combat boots, crouching in the dirt. He couldn’t see her in the darkness.

“I’m all right,” she said without prompting. “You could have warned me.”

“You could have waited,” he said.

The “hole” extended in either direction in a straight line. It was five feet wide and five feet deep. In the darkness, against the sky above, Bolan could see Yenni moving to one knee.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Leftovers,” he said. “Satellite imaging says these trenches crisscross the area for miles. Immediately after the Arab Spring unrest, when civil war first broke out, the network was dug out by the first rebel forces. From the tactical reports we received—”

“We?” Yenni asked.

“From the reports my government received,” Bolan said, ignoring her attempt to pry, “that group of rebels was wiped out before they got a chance to fall back to their trenches. Outdated tactics, used in the wrong context. There’s a right way and a wrong way to make war.”

“And so the trenches remained.”

“Yes.” Bolan took out his tablet and brought up the overlaid map grid of their location. “The last time this area was imaged from space, the leading strip of trench went on for several hundred yards. There are cross trenches branching off along its length. The entire area has been dug out.”

“We must hurry, Cooper,” Yenni said. The chopper was almost on top of them now.

“Do you have an e-tool in your pack?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding confused. “Why would you—”

“Give it to me,” Bolan said. “And your RPG. And then run that way,” he told her, pointing.

She handed over the folding entrenching tool and unslung the RPG tube. “I have only one round,” she said.

“It will have to be enough.” Bolan took the rocket-propelled grenade from her and slung the tube over his shoulder, jamming the folding e-tool as far as he could into the outer slash pocket of his jacket. He tucked the RPG round inside the coat, making the garment sag heavily. “I’m heading in the opposite direction,” he said. “Draw them off me, but don’t do too good a job. When I open up on them I want that chopper coming at me.”

“You’ll be killed.”

“Sooner or later,” Bolan said, “we all are. Now scram.”

Yenni looked as if she might ask a question, but instead she closed her mouth, turned and ran without another word. Bolan did the same, fleeing through the rough-hewn trench, increasing the distance between them. The folding e-tool and the rocket-propelled grenade battered his flanks as his coat moved against his body.

The helicopter roared past.

He looked up just in time to see the chopper cut through the rectangle of sky delineated by the trench walls. He caught only a glimpse, but there was no mistaking that silhouette. He’d seen it many times before.

It was definitely a Mil Mi-24, designated the Hind by NATO. Introduced in the early seventies by the Soviets, the Hind was called the “flying tank.” With twin turboshaft engines driving a midmounted five-blade rotor, not to mention a pair of stub wings that served as three-station weapon hardpoints, the flying beast could carry a Gryazev-Shipunov twin-barreled autocannon, AT-2 “Swatter” antitank missiles, and a rocket pod or pods bearing S-8 rockets.

He pressed himself against the wall of the trench. Voices were coming closer, and the helicopter’s buzzing was receding. Sound echoed strangely inside the old trench network, but as near as Bolan could tell, that meant the chopper was circling around the target site as the ground troops closed in.

Mack Bolan stopped running. He cocked his head to one side.

A man fell into the trench at his feet.

Bolan had time to step back before two more enemy soldiers, both wearing the black armbands of the Wolf, tumbled into the trench. The enemy gunners had obviously been running in pursuit and encountered the trench network as abruptly as Yenni had. Bolan didn’t wait for them to recover, didn’t wait for them to shout a warning. He simply swept the suppressor-equipped barrel of his Beretta across the fallen, scrambling men and stroked the trigger repeatedly.

The subsonic 9-mm rounds churned through the fallen soldiers. The men writhed and were still. Bolan, wary of a surprise attack should one of them be shamming, rifled through their web gear. He came up with three Kalashnikov rifles and half a dozen loaded magazines, which he quickly shoved into his war bag. Pausing to pop the cover from the first rifle, he ripped its bolt free and threw it as far along the trench as he could. Then he dumped the stripped rifle and checked the other two, pulling back the bolt far enough to verify that a round was chambered in each.

He had just enough time to lift the barrel as a fourth soldier dived into the trench.

This man had seen the lip of the excavation coming, or perhaps he’d heard the scuffle or the cough of Bolan’s suppressed Beretta. Either way, he leaped into the ditch as if he intended to make some war.

Bolan was happy to accommodate him.

The American soldier triggered his borrowed Kalashnikov and raked the man across the chest. The enemy gunner was dead before he finished hitting the dirt. Farther along the trench, somewhere between his current position and where Yenni had been, more soldiers were piling in from above, their weapons ready. Bolan knew he couldn’t face them all. The trench walls formed a fatal funnel that could work both for him and against him. Without the element of surprise, he would be just as vulnerable to the enemy’s guns as they were to his.

He opted for distance, moving along the passage in a low crouch, headed away from the soldiers massing between him and Yenni. He could hear gunfire behind him and to his left. At this distance it was hard to tell Yenni’s chopped AK from the full-size Kalashnikovs chattering to meet it, but he thought perhaps he could. He didn’t need her to hold out long, and in fact, he’d meant it when he’d told her he didn’t want her to do too well in drawing fire. It was essential that the Hind eventually fix on him. He just needed a little time to work.

Footsteps above his head brought him up short. Two lines of the Wolf’s uniformed patrolmen were now paralleling the trench on either side. Bolan crouched low so they couldn’t see him in the darkness. By his rough count, there were five on either side. He knew what they were after, too: they were walking the trench in order to sweep it clean. No doubt there were more doing the same thing in the opposite direction.

The Hind made a closer pass and a spotlight came alive, one attached to the Hind’s nose cannon. The bright shaft played across the arid scrub and dipped in and out of the trench, back and forth, as the chopper’s pilot walked his craft sideways along the ditch.

The patrol would see Bolan any moment now. All they had to do was point a handheld light in his direction. He raised his Kalashnikov, making sure the selector was on full automatic, and spun his body in a tight arc. The soldier blasted away at ankle level, chopping down the patrolmen, continuing his spin to raze the feet of the men at his right. Unable to process what had happened, the men simply started screaming. Bolan spared them mercy rounds with the rest of his magazine, burning half his bullets on one side, half on the other. His ears were ringing from the echoes of the gunfire as he hurried on.

Above him, the Hind abruptly stopped its gliding, sideways pattern. Either its occupants had spotted him, which was unlikely, or they had seen the muzzle flashes of his short engagement.

He nearly collided with the dirt bank as the trench ended. Judging the height of the walls around him and casting one more glance at the helicopter, he estimated the trajectory he would need.

It was time.