Chavez was halfway down the rear stairwell, turning at the landing, when the door to the LCC opened below him. He leapt back, out of view. He could hear gunfire throughout the lower floors of the building, and he was also receiving the Rainbow teams’ transmissions in the comms set in his ear. Two of the three teams were in the hallway on the other side of the LCC, but they were being kept at bay by over a dozen terrorists who held fortified positions in the hall.
Ding knew that the president of the Russian rocket company — he hadn’t bothered to learn the son of a bitch’s name — could launch the missiles with little preparation.
Clark’s operation orders to all the men on the mission were cold. Even though there would be a dozen unwilling participants in the launch control room, Clark had stressed that they were not innocents. Chavez and Rainbow were to assume that these men would launch the missiles that could kill millions — under duress, maybe, but they could launch them nonetheless.
Chavez knew that it was up to him.
For that reason Ding had been outfitted with six fragmentation grenades, an unusual load-out for a mission involving hostages. He was authorized to kill everything that moved in launch control to assure that the Dnepr rockets did not leave those silos five miles to the east.
But instead of reaching for a frag, he quickly took off his sub-gun, placed it silently on the stairs, then quickly climbed out of his chest gear, only taking his radio set from it and hooking it to his belt. Removing his vest made him lighter and faster and, he sure hoped, quieter. He drew his Glock 19 pistol from his right hip and quickly spun the long suppressor onto the barrel.
He carried special Fiocchi 9-millimeter subsonic ammunition for his handgun; he and Clark had discovered it when training in Rainbow and he knew that, when fired through a good suppressor, it made his Glock as close to whisper-quiet as a firearm could ever be.
Clark had stressed that the entire operation hinged on speed, surprise, and violence of action — Ding knew he needed all three of these factors in spades in the next sixty seconds.
He lifted the Glock to eye level and took one calming breath.
And then he kicked his legs over the railing, spun one hundred eighty degrees, and dropped through the air toward the men in the stairwell below.
Fifteen seconds to launch of 104!” shouted Maxim. Even though Safronov was only five feet away, Georgi could barely hear over the gun battle raging in the hallway.
Safronov stepped to the remaining launch key and put his hand on it. While doing so he turned and looked over his shoulder, across the dozen Russian engineers, and at the two exits across the room. On the right, two Jamaat Shariat stood inside the doorway to the rear stairs; two more men were out in the stairwell guarding access from the first and third floors.
And on his left was the door to the hall. Two men were positioned just inside the doorway here, and whatever remained of Jamaat Shariat was outside, martyring themselves in the fight to give Safronov every second he needed to get at least one of the nukes in the air.
Georgi shouted to his four brothers in the room with him. “Allahu Akbar!” He looked quickly to Maxim seated below him for confirmation that the pressure cap had been charged for launch. The Russian just nodded blankly while looking at his monitor.
Georgi heard a grunt and then a scream, his head swiveled back to the stairwell, and he saw one of his two men there falling backward, a spray of blood squirting from the back of his head. The other man was down already.
The two Jamaat Shariat men across the room saw this, and they had already spun their weapons toward the threat.
Safronov turned the key and then reached for the button, his eyes on the doorway. Suddenly a man in a black tunic spun through the doorway in a blur, his long black pistol high and swinging toward Georgi without hesitation. Georgi saw a flash of light as he began pressing the button to launch the Dnepr, and he felt a tug in his chest. And then a second tugging on his right biceps.
His arm flew back, his finger left the launch button, and he fell back onto the table. Quickly he reached for the button again, but Maxim, still seated at the control panel, quickly reached up and turned both keys up into the disarm position.
Georgi Safronov felt strength pouring from his body in a flood; he half leaned, half sat, on the table by the control panel, and he watched the man in black, the infidel, as he moved along the wall in some sort of run-crouch, like a rat hunting for a meal in an alley. But the man in black fired his gun as he moved; it flashed and smoked, but a fresh ringing in Georgi’s ears drowned out any noise.
The man in black killed both of the Jamaat Shariat men guarding the hallway door. Just killed them like they were nothing, not men, not sons of Dagestan, not brave mujahideen.
All the Russian engineers at tables dove for the ground. Georgi was the only man standing now, and he realized he was still standing, still alive, and he still controlled the fate of Moscow and he could still destroy millions of infidels and cripple the government that enslaved his people.
With renewed strength Safronov used his left hand now, and reached back to turn the keys to rearm the silo.
But as he put his fingers on the first key, a movement in front of him caught his eye. It was Maxim, he was standing from his chair, he was swinging his fist, and he hit Georgi Safronov square on the nose, knocking him over the top of the table and onto the floor.
Domingo Chavez helped the Russian technicians secure and barricade the door between the LCC and the hallway, which would help to keep all the terrorists in the hallway.
In Russian, Ding shouted to the dozen men there, “Who has served in the military?” All but two raised their hands quickly. “Not in the rocket forces,” Ding clarified. “Who is good with an AK?” Only two kept their hands up, and Chavez gave them each a rifle and instructed them to watch the door.
He then rushed over to the guy he came to kill; he still didn’t know the motherfucker’s name. He saw a big Russian sitting on top of the wounded man. “What’s your name?” Ding asked in Russian.
“Maxim Ezhov.”
“And his name?”
“Georgi Safronov,” the man said. “He is still alive.”
Ding shrugged; he had meant to kill him, but he would not kill him now that he was no threat. He searched the man quickly, found a Makarov and a few extra magazines and a phone.
A moment later, Chavez activated his radio headset. “Romeo Two for Rainbow Six. Launch keys secured. Repeat, launch keys secured.”
The Mi-17 helicopters moved low and fast over the flat landscape. A unit of eight Rainbow operators took Launch Silo 103, along with the sniper/recon team that had been in place for a day and a half. Five miles to the south, another unit of eight, again with covering fire from two men in the snowy grass, killed the Jamaat Shariat forces there.
Once Rainbow secured the rockets, specially briefed munitions experts climbed down into the silo and stepped onto the equipment deck to access the third stage. Headlamps illuminated their work while they opened an access hatch to expose the Space Head Module.
A third helo, a Russian Army KA-52 Alligator gunship, flew to within a kilometer of the bunker near the turnoff to the Dnepr facility. Inside were four Dagestani rebels. No one asked them if they wished to surrender. No, their position was rocketed and auto-cannoned until the four men’s bodies were so thoroughly mixed with the rubble that only the insects, carrion, and wild dogs that would populate the steppes in the springtime would ever recover them.
And a fourth helo, an Mi-17, landed at the LCC. John Clark stepped off the aircraft and was led inside by Colonel Gummesson.
“Rainbow casualties?” asked Clark.
“We have five dead, seven wounded.”
Shit, thought John. Too fucking many.
They took the stairs out of the lobby to the second floor, moved through the carnage of the hallway, where fourteen Dagestanis died in a futile attempt to buy their leader enough time to launch the nukes. Bodies and body parts and blood and scorched metal were everywhere. Bloody medical dressings lay in wads and Clark could not walk without kicking spent brass or empty rifle magazines.
In the LCC he found Chavez, sitting in a chair in the corner. He’d hurt his ankle in an awkward landing after leaping over the stair rail. His adrenaline had dulled the pain for those critical few seconds afterward, but now the joint swelled and the pain grew. Still, he was in decent spirits. The men shook hands, left hand to left hand, and then they hugged. Ding then motioned to a man in a camouflage uniform in the corner. A Rainbow medic from Ireland was treating him. Georgi Safronov was white and covered in sweat, but he was definitely alive.
Clark and Chavez stood in the launch control room while the launch engineers, until ten minutes ago hostages here in this room, powered down and reset all of the systems. The Irish medic continued to work on the wounded terrorist, but Clark had not checked on him.
Over Clark’s headset a call came through: “Delta team to Rainbow Six.”
“Go for Rainbow Six.”
“We are at site 104. We have opened the payload container and have accessed the nuclear device. We have removed the fuses and rendered the weapon safe.”
“Very well. Losses to your men?”
“Two injured, both noncritical. Eight enemy killed.”
“Understood. Well done.”
Chavez looked to Clark; he’d heard the exchange in his headset as well. “I guess he wasn’t bluffing.”
“Guess not. One down, one to go.”
A full minute later, a second transmission came over the net. “Zulu team to Rainbow Six.”
Clark grabbed the radio. “Go for Six.”
A Canadian nuclear munitions expert said, “Sir, we’ve breached the Space Head Module and opened the payload container.”
“Roger that. How long until the weapon is rendered safe?”
A pause. “Um, sir. There is no weapon.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying there is no device at 106?”
“There is a device, but it’s definitely not a nuke. There is a tag on this thing, let me clean this so I can read it. Wait one… Okay, it’s in English. From the markings on this device, I do believe that what I’m looking at here is a 1984 Wayne Industries, S-1700 school bus engine.”
At launch control, Clark turned to Chavez, their eyes met. A moment of panic.
Ding stated the obvious in a breathless whisper. “Fuck me. We’ve lost a twenty-kiloton nuke.”
Clark’s head swiveled over to the injured man on the floor. The Rainbow medic was tending to him still. The Dagestani had a bullet wound in his chest that, Clark could tell from having been around others with such an injury, would be excruciatingly painful. He had a second hole in his upper arm. Georgi’s breath was shallow, and his face dripped sweat. He just stared up at the older man standing above him.
The American put his hand on the shoulder of the medic. “I need a minute.”
“Sorry, sir. I am just about to sedate him,” the Irishman said as he swabbed Safronov’s forearm.
“No, Sergeant, you are not.”
Both the medic and Safronov looked up at John Clark with wide eyes.
The Irishman said, “Aye. He’s all yours, Rainbow Six.” And with that he stood and walked off.
Now Clark knelt over Georgi Safronov. “Where is the bomb?”
Georgi Safronov cocked his head. Through his short wheezes he said, “What do you mean?”
Clark drew the SIG in his coat with his left hand and shouted, “Goin’ hot!” to the men in the launch control room. He then fired four rounds into the concrete under the large wall displays, just past where Safronov lay. The injured man shuddered with new fear.
But Clark wasn’t shooting at Safronov. He was, instead, rendering the tip of his pistol’s barrel nearly red-hot from the expulsion of explosive gases.
He took the hot barrel, grabbed Safronov by his right arm, and jammed the barrel into the jagged bullet wound in his biceps.
Safronov screamed like a banshee.
“No time to fuck around, Georgi! Two rockets! One nuke! Where is the other fucking bomb?”
Safronov finally stopped screaming. “No! Both Dnepr-1s were armed. What are you talking about?”
“We aren’t idiots, Georgi. One of them was armed with a goddamned bus engine. You didn’t think we’d have armament experts here to—”
Clark stopped talking. He could see it on Safronov’s bloodstained face. A look of confusion. Then a look like… like what? Yes. Like a man who just realized that he had been betrayed.
“Where is it, you son of a bitch? Who took it?”
Safronov did not answer; he seemed overcome with anger, his pale face speckled with this fury.
But he did not answer.
“Going hot!” Clark shouted again, and pointed his pistol at the wall so he could turn it once again into a searing torture device.
“Please, no!”
“Who has the bomb?”