Caruso looked at him doubtfully. “And that works?”
Chavez shrugged noncommittally. “It did when I was young and dumb.” With a wink, he added, “You should give it a try.”
As the three men strapped themselves in, two figures in dark uniforms and body armor walked over from the JOC building. From the HK416s on their shoulders, it was obvious they were Delta Force operators.
One of the men looked at the Kiowa. “We drew the short straws, so it looks like we’re on the other side of this old piece of shit.” He shook Ding’s, Dom’s, and Sam’s gloved hands with a gloved hand of his own, and the other Delta man did the same.
“Who are you guys?” one of the Delta Force men asked Chavez.
Ding smiled. “You are probably more used to people asking you that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Do you ever answer that question?”
The man shook his head. “Negative.”
“Well, then,” Ding said. “There you go.”
There was an obvious presumption by the Delta Force operatives that Ding and his men were CIA Special Activities Division officers, which was exactly what Clark and Chavez used to be. Chavez did nothing to dispel this notion, and Clark had even mentioned that Midas was on board with keeping up this ruse with his men.
Before the Delta operators went to the other side of the helo, Conway and Page came out of Flight Ops and introduced themselves to the men they would be flying in to the operation.
Conway said, “We’re going to depart to the southwest, away from the city. We’ll be right behind the two MH-6s. We’ll pick up the Dnieper River and then turn to the north, go low and shoot straight up into Kiev. With the route we’re going to take, it will be thirty-one miles to the target. We are going to do everything we can to keep everyone from knowing who we are, where we are going, and what we are up to.
“That means we’re going to fly really fucking low and really fucking fast. I just want to let you dudes know, this is going to be a wild ride. You see bridges or power lines in our path, then it’s a good bet I see them, too, so don’t freak out.”
The five men just nodded back at the helo pilot. Dom Caruso’s nod was the least sure of them all.
Conway continued, “Like I said, we’re going in behind the Little Birds, but I’m not a Night Stalker and this is not a Little Bird, so if they have some capabilities to keep the men on the outside of their aircraft from shitting their pants and puking up their MREs, then the guys on the other helos will be better off than you, because, frankly, I’ve never done this before.”
Caruso was already turning green with the thought of what was to come.
Ding said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be strapped in. As long as you don’t slam this into a wall or into the ground, then we’ll be okay.”
Conway nodded. “When we get there, the guys on the other helos will fast-rope to the roof exits and the Little Birds will get out of the way. I’ll land on the roof, and when I do, I want you guys off my helo PDQ. I’ll take off and head back over the river, and I’ll wait for your comms to come back and pick you up.”
Ding said, “That sounds good.”
They talked another minute or two about the possibility they might be leaving with a prisoner, and also about the possibility for evacuating wounded after the raid. Ding didn’t think it sounded like there were many feasible options to get out of that hotel from the roof with a gunshot wound, and he got the impression from everyone that a downed American might have a better chance at survival just waiting for a Ukrainian ambulance there.
He did his best to put those concerns out of his mind, told himself it would be best if he didn’t get shot or let any of his buddies get shot, and then he sat down on the narrow bench.
—
Five minutes later the Kiowa Warrior was airborne, flying slow and low across the airport grounds. It soon climbed into the night sky, following the MH-6s a few hundred yards ahead.
For Dom, the first couple of minutes weren’t nearly as bad as he thought they would be. His earplugs kept the rotor noise to a minimum and the fact he was sandwiched between Sam and Ding meant he wasn’t rocking around as much as he’d feared. As they raced over flat farmland, his main issue was the incredible cold brought on by the wind. He was wearing a lot of clothing and gear, as well as a Kevlar helmet and goggles, but his cheeks felt like they would freeze solid.
Just when he decided the flight itself wouldn’t be so scary, the Kiowa lurched into the air suddenly and violently. Dom slammed his helmet into Sam, and Ding slammed his helmet into Dom.
They shot just over a set of high-tension wires across an open field, so close Dom thought his boots would catch a wire.
Then they dropped straight down on the other side, leveling out at less than twenty feet. Dom felt the vertebrae in his back compress, and he also felt the acid in his stomach churning.
He leaned forward and looked ahead, and his heart sank. There were more wires and hills between him and the river.
Fuck.
Now it felt, to Caruso, like he was reliving a horrifying plane crash over and over and over again. The Kiowa Warrior fired up a few hundred feet to climb above wires and buildings and hills, and then it plunged down, nose forward, picking up speed. Although Dom was strapped in to the narrow bench, his body felt weightless, his legs rose in front of him, and he had to squeeze the 416 on his chest tightly to his body to keep his arms down and the gun in place.
Then the weightlessness ceased, and he felt the pull on his straps and the pressure in his low back against the bench as the Warrior bottomed out and raced so low over the ground that, when Dom did open his eyes, he saw the roofs of small houses at eye level and treetops higher than the helicopter he was riding on.
He had no trouble convincing himself that the pilot was insane, and he suspected the pilot was personally trying to give him a heart attack.
The helicopter raced low over some sort of a strip mine in the middle of a forest. There was enough light to see pyramids of gravel all around them.
Without warning the aircraft turned on its y-axis, the tail shot out to the side, and the three men on Dom’s side of the aircraft were all pulled to the right. For a hundred yards or so it seemed to Dom as though he was at the front as the Kiowa raced along sideways, slowed, and then began flying forward again.
It was just a sudden change of direction, but the men on the bench had been rocked, pummeled, and spun by it. Dom looked to his right just in time to see Sam Driscoll lean forward slightly, then vomit violently out into the dark sky.
Caruso leaned away from his colleague. Getting Sam’s puke on his boots wouldn’t be the worst thing Dom had to deal with this evening, he was sure, but he kicked his feet out to avoid the vomit nonetheless.
When Sam was finished with his puking fit, he took a hand off his rifle and wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his arm. He turned to Dom, saw that he had seen the whole thing, and shrugged slightly, as if it was no big deal.
The helicopter plunged again on the far side of the hill, and Dom himself began throwing up.
—
CW2 Eric Conway raced his helo thirty feet over the cold water of the Dnieper River, his eyes darting between the two birds he was following into the target, the water and the boat traffic on it, and his various sensors that told him how far until his next waypoint and the status of all the aircraft’s systems.
The mast of a ship was just ahead, so he pulled on his cyclic to avoid it. He knew he was tossing the men on the outside of the fuselage around like marionettes, but he didn’t have the ability to focus on anything as unimportant as the creature comforts of his passengers at the moment.
Soon he saw the Fairmont ahead on his left; it was the tallest building along the water on the western side of the Dnieper. The Night Stalker pilot in the lead Little Bird announced “One minute” on the radio, and Page reported that he was getting no warnings of inbound bogeys on the radar.
Conway watched as the two small black helos rose above the water and slowed, then made one quick circle around the roof of the hotel. He saw the flashes of gunfire on the roof, and immediately he saw more flashes coming from the Little Birds.
He began climbing away from the river himself, and pitched up his nose to slow his speed.
Over the radio he heard: “Taking fire from the roof and balcony on southern side.”
Conway slowed further as he made it to roof level. Now he could hear the Delta Force guys on his side of the helo firing down at targets near the helicopters. Within seconds all the targets were down, and then, with a command from one of the other helo pilots, both Little Birds descended just above the roof. Conway kept his eyes flitting between his multifunction display and his outside environment, but he caught a glance of men sliding down ropes from the helicopters.
In seconds, ten men were on the deck and moving to the stairwells, and the MH-6s were climbing back into the sky. Conway wasted no time moving into position to drop off his passengers.
There was space on the roof enough for three helicopters. The two big Eurocopters were on helipads, but there was a wide-open area a little lower than the raised pads that was just enough room for him to put down.
He came in as quickly as possible, and while he watched the rotors during descent Page leaned outside the open door to count down the distance in meters to the deck.
“Five, four, three, two . . . one . . .” They touched down, and Page turned and yelled at the men on his side of the fuselage, “Go! Go! Go!”
Conway turned to do the same, but the Delta men on his side were already running for the stairs, stacking up with the men who fast-roped off the Little Birds.
The men on Page’s side got off the bench quickly, and Page told Conway they were clear. The Kiowa rose into the night and turned to the south, careful to avoid the MH-6s already positioning themselves to the north.
86
Ding Chavez led his two men to the first Eurocopter. As he climbed onto the helipad he saw the last of the Delta operators disappear into stairwells leading down to Nesterov’s suite, but he didn’t focus on the stairwells for long. He was listening in to the comms of the assaulters so he could be ready when they came back up, but for now he would ignore their transmissions so he could pay attention to his portion of the mission. Dom had a small shaped charge given to him by a Delta demolitions man, and he pulled it from his pack. Sam and Ding lifted Dom up onto their shoulders, he balanced himself on the fuselage of the helo, and then he put his boots on their shoulders and stood so he could reach the rotors. He planted the device at the base of the rotor shaft, and then he slid back down.
It took another minute to do the same to the second helo. After Dom slid back down to the helipad, all three men ran down the helipad stairs and toward one of the stairwells.
Ding had been advised to speak on the Delta communications net as little as possible, so there wouldn’t be any unnecessary cross-talk. But when he and his two mates made it into the safety of the stairwell and Dom had his detonator in his hand, Ding did broadcast: “Assault team, this is Topside. Charges are in position on the roof.”
“Roger, Topside. Confirm we are all clear of the roof. Blow them.”
“Roger that,” Ding said, and Dom turned a dial on his radio detonator.
Above them, a pair of loud booms confirmed the destruction of the rotors of the helos.
—
Chavez knew his portion of the mission was complete, other than the extraction, but he could hear massive amounts of gunfire two floors below. On the radio he heard the call “Wounded Eagle,” which meant one of the Delta assaulters had been injured.
Ding called into the already crowded radio traffic. “This is Topside. We’re in stairwell Bravo. We can come down and recover the wounded if you need us, over.”
“Topside, do it. Descend to stairwell on the ninth floor. We will meet you there. Do not leave the stairwell. We have a blocking force in the eighth-floor stairwell keeping enemy below us, and all persons in the ninth-floor hallway will be considered hostile and engaged.”
“Understood,” Ding said, and he, Sam, and Dom rushed down the stairs.
From the sound of the gunfire, Ding could tell the Delta blocking force below him was heavily engaged. No sooner had they arrived at the meeting point for the first wounded operator than a second Wounded Eagle call came, this one just one floor below them on the stairs. Ding sent Sam down to try to help get that man up to the roof, while he and Dom waited for the first injury to arrive from the hallway.
As the radio traffic continued at a calm but rapid clip, Dom leaned over to Ding. “Too many fucking Russians.”
“Yep,” Ding said.
The hallway door opened, and two Delta men appeared, dragging by his body armor a man with a bloody leg wound. Dom and Ding got the man to his feet and put his arms over their shoulders to support him.
The two Delta men turned to go back into the suite, but Ding said, “It sounds like it’s falling apart in the stairwell.”
A loud explosion, just below their feet, confirmed this.
One of the Delta operators said, “It’s going bad all over. Get him on the roof and then head back to help out down there.”
“Roger,” Ding said, and then he and Dom struggled to climb the stairs to the roof.
—
After five minutes of constant gunfire all over the upper floors of the building, Delta announced on the radio that they had Dmitri Nesterov in custody in the suite, but they were pinned down. Sam and two surviving Delta men in the stairwell had retreated up to the ninth floor just before they were overrun by dozens of Seven Strong Men gunmen, but now they were dropping frag and flash grenades down in an attempt to hold the horde of attackers back.
Dom and Ding had been pulled out of the stairwell by the Delta team leader, who told them to get into the hallway to cover the elevator. They arrived to find a dead assaulter lying in an open car, with four dead Seven Strong Men with him. The second elevator car arrived, and Dom and Ding got their guns up just in time to see a half-dozen armed men inside.
Both Americans dropped to the floor and opened fire, and each of them dumped an entire magazine into the men. When they were all down, Dom ran forward and pulled a body halfway through the door, ensuring it could not close and send the car back downstairs to pick up more enemy.
A door at the end of the hall opened suddenly, and Chavez swung to it, pulling his pistol because his rifle was empty. He saw two Delta operators pushing along a hooded man with his hands zip-tied behind his back.
Everyone with a gun in the hallway, all four men, pointed their weapons at one another. Ding was the first to lower his pistol. Into his radio, he said, “We’re friendlies!”
The Delta guys got the message quickly. They lowered their rifles and pushed the prisoner forward. Ding saw one of the assaulters had been shot himself. His right shoulder was covered in blood, and a bloody bandage was wrapped around it.
Dom was already pulling gear off the dead operator. Soon he had him over his shoulder, and he struggled back to the stairwell.
The four men had made it only a few feet toward the stairs when Sam and two Delta men came through the door. Again, everyone swung their guns up at potential targets, but quickly they recognized they were all blue forces.
Sam said, “We’re overrun in those stairs. Gotta find another way back up.”
The force of men headed back toward the entrance to the suite. Ding and Sam kept their weapons trained on the door to the stairs, and soon it burst open. The two Americans cut down the Seven Strong Men gunners there, and a Delta man threw a smoke grenade to obscure their retreat up the hall.
In the suite the team leader called over the radio. The rest of the force had managed to keep the rear stairwell clear, so everyone moved to the back of the suite, went back into an employee access area, and linked up with the Delta Force operators there.
It took nearly fifteen minutes
to get everyone back to the roof. Delta had two dead and six wounded. Sam Driscoll had cuts on his face and arms from an explosion in the stairs, but Dmitri Nesterov was in hand.
The first Little Bird arrived, and the two most severely wounded were strapped on between the four lightly wounded men. The helo jolted into the air and took off for the relative safety of the river.
The Kiowa was called in next. The Campus men and the Delta operators covered the two stairwells on the roof as they waited for the helo to land.
—
As Conway lowered toward the roof, Page shouted into the radio, “Come right! Come right!”
Conway didn’t know what was going on, but he followed instructions. As he did so, he realized Page was grabbing his rifle off the dash and aiming it out the open door of the helicopter.
Dre Page shouted, “Pivot one-eighty and hold!”
Conway did as instructed. He was only twenty-five feet from touchdown, and by looking out past Dre he saw that a group of men had used a rope to climb onto the roof from the ninth-floor balcony. Obviously, they were doing this so they wouldn’t have to exit the stairwells, which would surely be covered.
Dre aimed his M4 rifle and opened fire on the four men. He blasted one man off the roof, and the man fell more than a hundred feet to the street below. Another man fell where he stood, dead on the roof. Two more dove behind the lip of the helipad, but the Delta assaulters on the roof saw what was happening and engaged them.
Conway landed a moment later, and a hooded prisoner was attached to his portside bench. Operators strapped in quickly; a couple of the men looked wounded, but Conway kept most of his focus on his radar and the stairwell exit right in front of the nose of his helo. He knew that at any time it could fly open and armed enemy could pour through.
Someone on the radio said, “We need thirty seconds!”
Conway called back, “Fuck thirty seconds! We’ve got to go, now!”
He looked over his shoulder and saw men firing on the other stairwell entrance. He knew at any moment bullets could start tearing through his aircraft. He grabbed his own rifle while he waited and leaned out, aiming it behind him.