"Sir, I would antic.i.p.ate that the battle will go on for most of the day," Pierson replied. "That will carry it well into the wee hours of our morning. Either that or, unfortunately, be over swiftly. In which case we will have lost a key ally in the black side of the current war as well as a friend."

Shota was not an expert digger. He just didn't have the mentality to learn the basic tricks of how much to dig up with each shovelful, the better angles to strike, the best way to cut through a root or move a rock so as to not wear himself down.

However, in his case, it didn't really matter. The guy could hurl a shovelful of the heaviest substance on earth a couple of hundred feet and keep going. Where other Keldara would roll a small rock out of the way, in Shota's case they kept their helmets on; rocks the size of small boulders were likely to go flying by.

But even the strongest man needs food to work, and Shota was wearing down.

Mike looked up in surprise as the front wall of the bunker started to disappear, the rocks and dirt flying upwards and to the side. In the case of some of the rocks they were flying nearly to the emplacements fifty yards away.

When he saw Shota's head start to emerge from the trench he understood.

A boulder the size of a small suitcase was in the Keldara's way. Unable to budge it with the small entrenching tool, the Keldara grabbed it in both ham-like hands and simply lifted it over his head, tossing it out of the trench. Although more or less rectangular in shape, it rolled ten meters.

"Hi, Shota," Mike said as the Keldara started hacking at the opening, widening it. "How you doin, man?"

Despite the cold the Keldara was stripped to his undershirt and still sweating. He also was covered in dirt. Mike wasn't sure how much of it was getting out of the trench. On the other hand, it was pretty good camouflage.

"Hungry," Shota replied, tossing the dirt out of the trench in fountains of dust. "Really hungry."

"We've got some food on the way," Mike said. "Don't know if it will be before or after the first attack.

But it's on the way. I held back a package of crackers if that will help?"

"Food?" the Keldara said, dropping his e-tool.

"And I've got one bottle of beer left," Mike admitted, pulling out the package of MRE crackers and one of the plastic bottles of beer he'd gotten made and issued for the Keldara beer ration. "Have at it."

The big Keldara stuffed the crackers in his mouth and washed them down with the beer. The entire bottle disappeared in one swig. Then he belched.

"Better," Shota said. "Thank you, Kildar."

"Now head back to your position," Mike said. "Don't fire the rocket until Dmitri or Oleg tell you to."

"Okay," Shota said. "I go back now."

"You know," Olga said, "if he was smart, he'd be scary."

"Yeah," Mike admitted. "Knew a guy like him on the teams, once. But smart. Wasn't as big but I'd swear he was just as strong. And you're right. He was scary. There's a couple of Deltas like that. Big as a house and smart. Those guys are freaks of nature. How are the boys?"

"Still with us," Olga said. Her arms were red to the elbows with blood. "But they're losing a lot of blood no matter what I do. When can we get them out of here?"

"Valkyrie, Valkyrie, ETA?"

"Five mikes, Kildar."

"Standby." Mike reached down and switched frequencies without looking. "Tiger Three, status?"

"Looks like a council of war. There are a bunch of guys scattered around on the hills just hanging out.

Minimum of fifteen mikes if they move right now. Got some sniper fire. Lasko's picking them off as fast as they get in position, though."

"Roger, out." Another freq switch. "Valkyrie, Valkyrie, dust-off hot. Position will be marked with yellow smoke."

"Roger, Kildar. Inbound your position, three mikes."

"YOSIF!" Mike yelled. Team Yosif had set up secondary positions to either side of the command bunker, a combination final security team and reserve.

"Yes, Kildar!"

"Dust-off coming in! I need some bodies!"

Mike crabbed past the casualties then crawled through the rear exit of the bunker-a narrow pa.s.sage between the original boulders-and stood up in the area behind. It was on the reverse side of the small hill from the Chechens and, hopefully, out of sight of their snipers. He pulled a yellow smoke grenade off his harness and tossed it to the more-or-less level ground just as he heard the "whop-whop" of the Hind on its way in.

"Valkyrie, LZ is marked."

"LZ in sight," Tammie replied. "Stella, we taking any fire?"

"Negative, ma'am," the crewchief replied.

"Okay, the job is toss the boxes out as fast as possible then load the wounded. I'm not going to stop while you toss, just for the wounded. Got it?"

"I think I can handle that, ma'am," Stella said, a note of humor in her voice.

Stella Kulcyanov was seventeen, just. She had all the height and musculature of the Kulcyanov Family but was dark of hair and eyes, the latter showing the traces of some Tartar ancestor. Her first experience of a "real world" mission had been sliding down a rope into the offices of an Albanian owned nightclub in Romania, in the midst of a hot firefight. Her job had been to pull every last hard drive in the room in no more than three minutes. She had managed to do it in two minutes and forty-eight seconds, slightly bettering her best time during rehearsals.

As the Hind slowed while pa.s.sing over some boulders she released her grip on the spades of the minigun, slid back the troop door and started tossing boxes out of the helicopter. About half of the cargo was ammunition crates which were heavy but nothing compared to hay-bales; she picked up one in either hand and hurled them out the door. The rest were wooden boxes, gifts from the Mothers of the Keldara to their sons. Those, she handled with a bit more care.

The last thing out the door was a big rubber bag. That was the hardest to maneuver. It had to be rolled and there wasn't a good way to grab it. She finally lay down on the floor and pushed it out with her boots.

By that time the helo had come to a stop and she scrambled forward to help with the stretchers.

"We've got it," Yosif said, climbing into the helo. "Hey, Stella. Where's Gretchen?"

"In the Halls," Stella said, looking at the casualty. Ama Ferani had been hit by something that had smashed his leg just above the knee. A tourniquet was on and he wasn't losing much blood but she didn't think he'd keep the leg. "Hit by the bunkers in the pa.s.s."

"s.h.i.t," Yosif said, shaking his head. He grabbed the next stretcher and put it in the rack. And the next and the next. Two were walking wounded, Karoly Makanee with a round that had punctured his body armor low on the left side and Pedar Shaynav hit in the upper right arm. The round had hit the brachial artery and he was half unconscious with blood loss. "She was true Keldara."

"As are you, Yosif," Stella replied. She was already hooking Pedar up to a liter of whole blood. She wasn't sure which of the stretcher casualties, or maybe even Pedar, would need the defibrillator. The Ranger medic had started to explain it and she'd cut him off; she'd seen one before and the instructions were easy enough to read. Compared to circuit diagrams they were comical. "Aer Keldar."

As the helo lifted into the air she hooked up two more liters of blood then turned to the miniguns again.

The bird would be crossing near the defense position closing the pa.s.s. She may be an angel of mercy on this mission, but she was more than willing to be anavenging angel.

The Valkyr were, after all, warriors.

"We are agreed, then," Commander Bukara said, trying to hold onto his patience.

The Chechen resistance had something resembling a high command but they were in the hills nearer toGrozny . They'd been sending suggestions, most of them idiotic, throughout the entire action. But here, Bukara was the senior most commander.

That didn't mean he could just order the other groups around. Each of the Chechen "battalions", most not much larger than a traditional company, were groups controlled and kept together by individuals. And a bigger bunch of prima donnas it was hard to find.

"I still feel that if you wish to command you shouldlead ," Commander Sorrano said, his face hard.

"My force has beenchasing these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds for the last nine hours," Bukara said, patiently. "Now, as the wolf pack changes members to drag down the deer, we shift over. There are six hundred of you with your combined groups. There are only a barehundred of them, now that we have done cutting them down on the chase. I have taken nearly a hundredcasualties . But if you're afraid of a few Keldara..."

"We are notafraid ," Sorrano said. He was a big man, dark of face and hair, wearing bandoliers of ammunition for the PKM he carried across both shoulders and four gigantic daggers on his belt.

He probably thought it made him look fierce: to Bukara it made him look like an idiot. Some of the links in the bandoliers were clearly kinked; if he tried to use the ammunition, his gun was going to jam. And Bukara, who had been in more than one hand-to-hand battle, had never used more than one knife in his life. His experience of "hand-to-hand" was that you generally used the biggest, heaviest thing you could get your hands on, generally an empty rifle. Knives were weapons of absolute last resort.

"Then don't you think that over sixhundred of you are capable of killing less than a sixth your number?"

Bukara asked, patiently. "My men will be in support. We will establish a base of fire on the hilltop to keep their heads down. My mortars will be in support shortly. You should have fire from them before you reach the objective. All you have to do is run up a hill and kill them. What could be easier?"

"Hey, boss, we got movement,"Adams said.

Mike lifted his head out of the bunker and looked down the hill. Sure enough, there were figures moving on the hilltop below.

"Guess they got done with their little colloquy," Mike said, pressing his throat mike. "Gonna get hot soon.

Tell the guys as soon as they push back this attack we've got fresh food."

"Now that's motivation," the former SEAL replied. "It's cold as h.e.l.l out here. And I are hungry."

The clouds were clearing off rapidly and the sky was turning a beautiful blue. Mike stopped as he saw some movement in the sky, wondering if the Chechens had gotten air support. But it was only birds.

Ravens.

"How do they know?" Mike asked, slipping back into the bunker.

"The ravens fly?" Olga asked, smiling. "The eyes of the Father of All are upon us this day."

"The bird of wisdom," Mike said, frowning. "You know, I think it finally makes sense."

"What?" Vanner asked, not looking up from his pad.

"The bird of wisdom," Mike said. "You can just see it. There was some shaman who was teaching a kid the different animals. He gives them all attributes, just cause their easier to remember that way, right? So the kid sees a raven. 'Hey, shaman dude, what's that?' 'That's a raven. He's the bird of wisdom.' 'Why's that?' 'Cause he never lands until after the battle is over.'"

"Sort of like lawyers," Vanner said. "The ambulance chasers of the animal world."

"They just turn up to pick the dead," Mike said, frowning. "Be d.a.m.ned if any lawyers are going to pick overmy dead. What's the intel on this group?"

"I get a count of about one kay, boss," Vanner replied. "That's based on prior intel on the different groups that have arrived. There's about six. The main group is a guy with the codename of Commander Bukara. Former Soviet lieutenant went over to the Chechen resistance quite a ways back. Was in on the battle ofGrozny and a couple of other major actions.Had about five hundred. According to the ladies he's been b.i.t.c.hing on open channel about casualties in the pursuit."

"He don't know for casualties, yet," Mike said.

Chapter Forty-Two.

Salah El Ezam was seventeen, born on a small farm in the mountains aboveGrozny .

Salah could write, barely, and read a bit. He had been taught some words of writing by the mullahs in the town's madra.s.sa. But he knew the words of the Koran, and especially of the Hadiths, by heart.

From the time he was born he could remember men talking about the Great Jihad. To die in battle in the jihad was the highest honor a Muslim could attain. Such a martyr was guaranteed a place in heaven at the Prophet's side.

The Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, had spoken Allah's will, that the entire world must be in submission to the will of Allah. All Muslims were slaves to Allah: the common name Abdullah simply meant Slave of Allah and Islam, in Arabic, meant submission. Men were in submission to Allah and women in submission to men. It was through the men in their lives, their fathers when they were growing up and their husbands when they married, that women worshipped the True G.o.d.

Any who were not in submission to Allah were infidels. The only true submission was through the laws of shariah being the highest law of the land, the laws of submission to Allah.

This was the Jihad, the will of Allah, to place the world under submission. Some were called to preach but Salah had never been a great speaker. His calling was to place the world under submission through the gun, as the Prophet also had decreed in the Hadiths.

There was no fear in his heart as he crossed the hilltop and first saw the small cl.u.s.ter of boulders on the ridge above that protected the pagan Keldara. Allah had decreed that the world would be in submission to his will. They could not fail; Allah, the Victorious, the Beneficent, would not permit it.

"Okay, now that is an A-Number-One cl.u.s.ter f.u.c.k,"Adams said with a sigh. The Chechens were coming, oh, yeah. Lots of the motherf.u.c.kers. But they were just straggling over the hill that the snipers had been trying to use for cover and heading up the ridge any old way. It was almost sad. He hoped they'd cl.u.s.ter up a bit towards the end or the Keldara weren't going to get enough of them.

"Teams,"Adams said, touching his throat mike. "Let them get in close. Do not open fire until I initiate.

Keep under cover during their approach then b.u.g.g.e.r the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds when I give the signal."

There were two reasons for that order. The first was that it was the best way to break an attack. Letting a group close on you and then hitting them, hard, at the last minute, tended to break their will. Especially if you waited until they thought they weren't going to be fired on atall .

The second reason, though, sucked. The M4s that many of the Keldara carried had a problem. They were great weapons out to 250 meters. Beyond 250 meters, though, the muzzle velocity fell off, sharply.

The upside was that you could carry a h.e.l.l of a lot more rounds than, say, a 7.62 weapon for the same weight. However, in a situation like this he could wish they were all carrying German G-3s using NATO 7.62 rounds. Those f.u.c.kers were killers out to about a thousand meters. h.e.l.l, the Keldara could start picking them off fromhere .

But what they had were the M4s.

"Vanner," he said, after switching frequencies.

"Go, Tiger Three."

"Make a note for me to talk to Mike about our weapon choice when we get back."