“Figure that shit out later, numbnuts. We’re in a motherfucking firefight!”

Court rose higher and looked down the hill at the rear of the church. In the misty distance he saw the yellow Air Tractor begin its takeoff roll. He aimed at it, but before he could fire, bullets slammed into the van and exited right next to his head. A second string of three rounds pierced the vehicle and pounded into the back plate of his body armor.

He fell onto his stomach.

“You hit?” Zack asked between the cracks of his return fire.

“Negative.” Court pushed himself up again. “The crop duster is taking off!”

Zack had shifted his rifle to aim it under the van at a side door to the church there. Just as he did so he saw movement, as a man in combat boots came running out.

“Handle it, Six. I’ve got contact north!” Zack opened fire, ripping into the man’s feet and sending him tumbling to the gravel drive. When he hit the ground, Zack fired once more into the masked man’s head, killing him.

Court now shouted, “Cover!” and went prone, positioning his broken hand on the vertical of the rifle to steady it. Zack climbed to his feet and began firing around the front of the van. “Covering!”

Court aimed at the tiny yellow aircraft, already gaining speed, as it bounced along the wet grass of the airstrip.

He fired a single round, then another, his hand throbbing anew with each volley. He kept shooting, aiming, trying to judge for the aircraft’s increasing speed, the distance, and the bullet drop. The 416 was not a sniper rifle, but Court knew he should be able to hit a damn airplane at six hundred yards or more.

But the mist was heavy, the plane kept rolling away, and it didn’t look like he was going to be able to stop it.

He changed magazines with his good hand, flipped his weapon’s fire selector switch to fully automatic, and re-aimed at the tiny yellow plane as it took off from the bright green grass.

“C’mon, Gentry,” he said to himself, and he pressed the trigger, firing burst after burst as his left hand screamed in agony.

* * *

• • •

Four Russian mercenaries in full body armor burst through the rear door of the church in formation, rifles swinging right and left, searching for targets. When they found no threats they waved forward a group of people in the doorway. Fox, then Hines, then Zakharov, along with two Bratva men, all came running out towards three sixteen-passenger vans parked just meters from the door.

Behind them, Zoya appeared, her arms tied behind her back at the elbows, and two Bratva soldiers bracketed her as she was rushed out the back door and towards one of the vans.

Behind this group, a dozen more mercs in masks and the latest tactical equipment brought up the rear, scanning 360 degrees for enemy contact.

Gunfire raged from the roof, from the north, west, and south sides of the church, but here on the eastern side it was clear. The sound of the accelerating Air Tractor carried through the mist from the south, heard intermittently between the nearly incessant shooting.

Zoya watched while her father, Hines, and Fox climbed into a van, wasting no time racing off down the hill, making its own lane in the tall grasses. The other two vehicles revved their engines, their drivers already at the wheel, and Zoya was placed next to one of these while her two minders stepped up to the other. The back door was open, and inside were stacks of scuba tanks and other diving gear, as well as stacked Pelican cases, no doubt holding some other equipment for the unit.

As the men began to shut the back of the van, Zoya found herself unattended for a moment. In that instant, she turned to run back inside the church, but before she could take three steps a hand grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, leading her back to the door of the second white van.

* * *

• • •

Chris Travers and Art Greer bounded around the northern side of the church now and saw a white vehicle racing down the hill in the distance. Travers pressed his transmit key on his chest. “Squirters in a white van, heading east at speed.”

Jenner called back over the net immediately. “Once we suppress the threat here, we’ll bring the helo up and go after it.”

Travers and Greer took a few more steps towards the back of the property and saw a second, identical van racing off. Greer raised his rifle at it, but Travers stopped him. “The asset!”

Greer understood. The woman from CIA might be in the vehicle, so they couldn’t just rake it with gunfire.

As they finally rounded the back edge of the church they saw a third van, with several people moving around it, including a brunette woman with her arms restrained behind her back.

The men at the van saw the two Americans, and they raised their weapons. Travers and Greer fell flat onto the ground and, from the prone position, expertly picked off all four men without hitting the hostage.

They thought they had all the threats down, but the driver dove out of the vehicle with his short-barreled AK and aimed it at the attackers at the northern side of the building. He fired at them, and then they returned fire. He raced over to a stone wall in the back garden of the church to dive behind it, but Greer took him in the left hip before he got there, spinning him to the ground and wounding him fatally.

Travers changed magazines in a flash, then rose and began running over to the woman, his weapon now pointing back at the church, because gunfire continued booming from inside.

Travers raced up to the woman, shouting over the raging gun battle. “Ma’am, come with me. I’m taking you to cover.”

“Cut my arms free,” she shouted back.

“I’ll do it when we get somewhere safe.”

“I can’t run like this. Just cut the rope.”

Travers realized the folly of standing here in the open arguing, so he pulled his knife off his chest rig and moved behind the attractive woman he’d last seen months earlier near Phuket, Thailand. He cut her free, resheathed his knife, then said, “I want you tight on my back. We’re running to the wall of the church. Got it?”

“Got it!” she replied.

Travers began running for the church, twenty yards away. He’d expected to feel the presence of the female CIA asset right on his heels as he ran, but he did not. He slowed a little, concerned he’d gotten ahead of her, and then, when he made it to the stone wall, he spun around and looked back.

The brunette was not behind him at all. Instead she had climbed behind the wheel of the remaining white van. Before his eyes the vehicle lurched forward and took off down the hill, following the tracks of the two before it.

* * *

• • •

Zoya Zakharova raced down the hill, trying to catch up with the closest van, now three hundred meters away or so and barely visible in the mist. As she buckled herself in to reduce the thrashing she was taking from the rough terrain, she looked to her left. There, next to her, was a wounded man in the front passenger seat. He was a Bratva soldier, not one of the elite mercenaries who’d shown up, and as she drove on she rifled through his body with her left hand and pulled out a CZ 75 pistol, which she placed on her lap, and a mobile phone, which she examined. When she saw the phone was locked, she used it to smack the wounded man across the face. In Russian she said, “Hey! Unlock this.”