Islamic clothes went on then a false beard, the prophet being big on beards. The old wig came off and a new one, long, black, lanky, went on. Shoes with the backs pushed down. A different, cheaper, watch.

A scar on one cheek. A small silver ring inscribed with the symbol of a crescent moon. But mostly it was the att.i.tude. He was suddenly a person from an Islamic society. Maybe a fighter. Maybe the scar was from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many men in the region were scarred who had never held a gun.

A packet of perfectly forged papers went into a pocket, money bag around his neck and out the door he went.

Down the street a Lada, virtually identical to every other Lada in the formerSoviet Union , was parked on a side street. A Chechen gentleman had purchased it for cash five days before and it had been sitting ever since. A couple of street urchins had been paid by a different man, a Russian, to ensure that it wasn't stripped to the frame.

Hadit Temiz climbed behind the wheel and with a brief prayer to Allah that the infernal machine would start turned the key. The Allah cursed vehicle came to life and he pulled out into the wind and rain.

At the main road he turned right, south, and headed to his next business appointment, secured two weeks before, inAzerbaijan . He'd have to remember to take the unmarked left fork in the valley ahead.

He tried to put out of his mind that as he went through the intersection he was going to have guns pointed at him from every side. Hadit Temiz did not know that.

In moments the Lada carrying Hadit, a Turkmen vendor of sundry cheap plastic knickknacks a selection of which were in the trunk, disappeared into the rain and darkness leaving nothing behind of Vladimir Yaroslav but a fat suit lying on the floor like the shed skin of a snake.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Mike stayed still in his hide as an out of tune Lada puttered to the south. From the sound of it, it took the fork headed forAzerbaijan .

But that wasn't what he was listening for. That was the sound of multiple engines coming from the north.

He'd found a nice little hide, a dug out portion to the stream bank which was relatively flat and just about covered in bushes. First he'd slowly laid out a heavy ghillie blanket then slithered under it, snuggling into the comforting mud of the bank. Once under that he'd divested himself of some of his enc.u.mbering gear; the blanket was thick and lined with Mylar to keep from letting loose any heat.

Once prepared he settled in to wait. When the vehicles, they sounded like small trucks or SUVs, pulled to a stop he still waited. He could hear the group deploying, quietly and professionally. They dropped into the streambed and walked down it, within a foot of his position at one point, without noticing that the pile of junk along the side of the stream was something other than a pile of junk. The night was still awfully dark and he'd have been hard to see in daylight much less under NVGs.

The fedayeen were, as normal, late. When he heard the second group of vehicles he pressed the transmitter and started the countdown.

The next was art rather than science. The other group of vehicles approached. Their lights would be on.

Even if they were tactical lights they would partially blind the Russians. And as the Islamics deployed the Russians, even though they each had a sector they were supposed to be watching, were going to be casting quick glances over their shoulder...

Now.

He stood up and casually walked up out of the streambed, fiddling with his zipper as he did.

Over all the rest of his gear he had a Russian military issue poncho. The weapon he'd chosen for the op was a BIZON 7.62x25 submachine gun. The weapon was a favorite of Russian special operations groups, firing a 7.62x25 bullet from an integrally silenced barrel. Heavier and less accurate than the silenced M4, it was still a pretty good weapon.

AS he'd guessed, the former Spetznaz were armed with a motley collection of personal weapons. He spotted two BIZONs before he was even up on the flat.

"You should have taken a p.i.s.s before we left," one of the guards growled, turning back from a glance over his shoulder at the Islamics. The guy was just about covered in frag grenades. Personally, Mike hated the things. He used them when he had to but never carried more than one unlessabsolutely necessary. He'd seen too many people frag themselves. This f.u.c.ker clearly loved the d.a.m.ned things.

Stupid f.u.c.k.

"Tea," Mike muttered back. Over the last year his Russian had gotten perfect and while accented, the accent didn't sound American. That was because it was a Keldara accent. But the Russian would have to be quick as h.e.l.l to notice that in the middle of an op.

Suddenly, Mike was just another of the Spetznaz guards. Several of them sported ponchos virtually identical to his. Same gun, same walk, same wariness.

Just one problem.

The two groups had stopped about sixty yards apart. That was fine, there were Keldara positioned on the far side of the engagement. The two groups would pincer the meet as soon as Mike initiated. But Mike had intended to get to the package and take it downthen initiate. It was the only way he could be sure there wouldn't be a nuke dropped on his head.

The problem was that the princ.i.p.als, and a select group of guards, was moving to the no-man's land in the middle of the two groups. On the Russian side there were four guards, Sergei Rudenko and Arensky.

Arensky was carrying what Mike presumed was the package, a briefcase. On the Islamic side there were four guards, these guys enc.u.mbered with bags but still with their hands on their weapons, Al-Kariya the Al Qaeda moneyman from the bulk and another guy, slimmer, n.o.body Mike knew about.

There was no way that Mike could approach that group. Too much ground to cover. Too open. Too obvious.

f.u.c.k.

Mike wandered one way then back, looking up at the woods where the Keldara waited then stopped by where he'd come out of the stream. Three of the Russians had gathered there, not exactly taking advantage of the shelter of one of the Mercedes SUVs they'd come in but close. One of them was the guy who had challenged Mike's "bathroom trip."

f.u.c.k. This was gonna suck.

As he approached the group his BFT buzzed, once. Adams was initiating. Out of time.

He reached over, casually pulled a pin out of one of the frags on the guy's harness and then pushed the man, hard, into the group.

Two steps and he was rolling across the hood of the Mercedes SUV, hitting the ground on the far side on both feet and aiming into the group of princ.i.p.als.

"Lasko! Go!"

Lasko had been continually adjusting his aim based on his read of the wind and, ignoring the sudden crash of multiple grenades, his finger stroked the trigger as soon as he heard the "Go" command.

"Target down," Sion muttered. "Shift right. Sniper on ridgeline. Target down. I lost the third one."

"Jackrabbiting," Lasko said. "Back..."

There was a thud next to him and looking over it was clear that Sion was not going to be drinking any more beer. Or, what was worse, doing any more spotting.

He was already down as the next round cracked overhead.

"Right," Lasko muttered. "If that's the way you want to play it."

He had two more hides prepared. Time to play the game.

"Sniper teams, engage targets in valley," Lasko said, thumbing his throat mike. "I'll take the enemy sniper."

Mike triggered a burst into the group of princ.i.p.als, trying for the distant figure that he a.s.sumed to be Sergei. The man was next to Arensky, anyway. Arensky and Al-Kariya were easy to spot. Neither one of them looked as if they knew what to do in the firefight that was erupting around them.

What he got, instead, were the two guards who moved to place themselves by the princ.i.p.als. It was the right move but it cost them their lives.

Sergei s.n.a.t.c.hed the case away from Arensky and picked him up by the collar, pounding towards the nearest vehicle as the mujaheddin closed in around Al-Kariya and began firing at the Russians.

Suddenly it was a free-for-all. Both groups, highly suspicious of each other, thought that they had been betrayed. The Russians were laying down fire on the fedayeen as the fedayeen backed up to their vehicles. Rounds were cracking downrange in both directions as Mike leapt to his feet and began pounding towards the retreating Russian.

Mike had counted on that. He figured when things went south, especially if it was from fire within the area, they would start fighting each other.

Neither group noticed, until too late, that they were being attacked from behind.

"Back!" Rashid shouted, drawing a pistol out of his robes.

He couldn't see who had fired but the explosion looked as if it must have been a rocket launcher and some of the Russians were down. The pig Sergei Rudenko had dragged the doctor, and the smallpox, away. The Russians were clearly attacking them, it was time to run.

"Protect Al-Kariya!" Haza shouted at the same moment, dropping to a knee and firing at the Russians on the other side of the open area. The fire from the SK-74 was short, controlled bursts. He fired twice then rolled to the side towards the riverbed, up on a knee, two more bursts.

Rashid grabbed the money-man by the arm and started backing away, firing his pistol in the general direction of the Russians.

"Come Haji Al-Kariya!" Rashid said but Al-Kariya had already picked up the hem of his robe and turned to the rear, breaking into a rather fast run for a man of his bulk.

The fedayeen guards were moving forward, their training in such a situation to be to counter-attack then withdraw. They were having to fire around the princ.i.p.als but they were all more than capable of doing so.

Rashid made it to the relative safety of the first pick-up in line and ran to the rear, dropping down and fumbling for a magazine.

"We must get the smallpox," Al-Kariya said. He had dropped into the mud of the road next to the younger financier and was panting heavily. "We must."

"The money is in the road back there," Rashid snarled. "We have to getthat ."

"To the devil with the money," Al-Kariya said, hefting himself to his feet as the last of the fedayeen dashed forward. "The smallpox is what matters!"

"Haza will get it if it is possible," Rashid a.s.sured him. "I will go forward and tell him." The younger man had just seated the magazine, it was not a natural thing for him, and looked up into the barrel of a weapon.

"Tell himwhat , pray?" a camouflage clad figure asked in pa.s.sable Arabic.

Rashid carefully set the pistol on the ground.

"Uh, sayyidi, you might want to raise your hands. Very slowly."

Mike pounded across the open area, trying to look like a guard closing in to secure his principle. As he did, he started taking fire from the fedayeen, some of itd.a.m.ned close.

"Uh, guys," Mike panted, keying his throat mike. "I could use some f.u.c.king FIRE here! And be aware that I'm in the middle of this gunfight!"

"Move! Move!" Sawn shouted as the Keldara boiled out of the streambed.

They were practically on top of the rear Russian vehicles. The Russians were concentrated on their firefight with the fedayeen and at first didn't even notice the fire coming in from behind. Guys were dieing in the rain. When a person's. .h.i.t, they generally fall forward whether they're hit from the back or the front.

And most of them had guys behind them firing past them. Most of them were snuggled into the dubious cover of the trucks, anyway. As were the fedayeen.

Sawn bounded forward and triggered a three round burst into the broad back of a Russian crouched into the wheel-well of one of the Mercedes SUVs. The fighter slumped into the wheel and his weapon fell to the ground out of slack fingers.

As Sawn moved forward, shooting another Russian in the back who had been firing around the next vehicle in line, Sawn's number two pumped another burst into the Russian, just to make sure.

Some of them seemed to notice the fire from behind them, a few turned around. But by then it was too late. The Keldara were bounding forward in two man teams, spread on either side of the trucks, engaging targets with their backs turned who were concentrated on firing to their front. It was almost too easy. It wasn't a firefight, it was a slaughter.

"We are coming, Kildar!" Sawn replied, keying his own mike. "We are coming."

Lasko slid into place and scanned the far ridge. There were cooling forms in the thermal imager but the difference between that and someone heavily cloaked was hard to determine.

He had pulled a ghillie cloak up and pulled up both his balaclava and face mask. The combination was going to reduce his thermal image. The sniper on the far ridgehad to be using a thermal imager; there was no way to pick someone out atthis range inthis blackness using an NVG.

There had been three pairs on the far ridge. He counted one, two...six cooling forms. Wait.

He fired without thinking, ducking at the same time to hear the enemy round pa.s.s overhead.

He rolled to the right, slid down the slope then up behind a tree, peering out again. Where the slightly hotter spot had been... Nothing. He needed a spotter, someone to check all the cooling targets for him but...

There. A sudden warm spot. Barely different from the background.

There was no time for careful measurement, no time for consideration. The rifle, again, slammed into his shoulder a surprise as it always was when the shot was good. He jerked back then, instead of moving, came right back up.

The hotspot...was still there. But...cooler.

"That's for you, Sion," Lasko whispered.

Revenge is a dish best served...cooler.

f.u.c.king blacka.s.ses.

Ivar Terekhov wished that there was some selective plague that would wipe all the blacka.s.s Muslims from the face of the earth. He had joined the Russian Army as a conscript but after his first tour in Chechnya he had reenlisted to join Spetznaz. One mission to "support" a convoy that had already been overrun by the f.u.c.king Chechens was all it took. One look at the mutilated bodies of his friends, his fellow soldiers, and the formerly laid back Moscovite had hated the blacka.s.ses with a burning pa.s.sion.

Oh, he'd lost his innocence over the years, as mission after mission had been completely f.u.c.ked up by higher command. He had come to understand that incompetence and corruption were the reality of his motherland, just as betrayal was the nature of the Islamic. He had quit, he had taken pay from the mob, he had even attacked the motherland on more than one occasion. But he still hated f.u.c.king blacka.s.ses.

Unlike a lot of his peers he had studied them, had read a translation of their Koran, had read Western papers on their culture. He wanted to know what drove their thinking. And the thing that he came to, over and over again, was that the Prophet, spit be upon his grave, had promised them paradise for every lie they told an unbeliever. They weren't just untrustworthy, they were thedefinition of untrustworthy.

They would rather lie to an unbeliever than tell the truth. Betrayal, to them, was as natural as breathing.

This firefight proved it. How they had slipped into their midst and detonated Matvei's grenades Ivar wasn't sure. But they clearly had. Matvei and his grenades might occasion some joking among the "Group" but henever made mistakes with them.

Now he had the chance to kill f.u.c.king mutilating, betraying blacka.s.ses and he intended to send as many of them to meet their Prophet in h.e.l.l as he possibly could.