Red Army

hospital across the river. Bring Levin, if he's still with you. I'll get Anureyev up. I want to make damned sure that, come first light, every man is where we need him. We got the bridge easily enough. Now it's just a matter of holding it."

"For how long? When do you think they'll get here?"

A spray of machine-gun fire ripped along the street, punching into the interior wall above their heads.

"Sometime tomorrow." And Gordunov got to his feet and launched himself back into the darkness, with Sergeant Bronchevitch trailing behind him.

Karchenko might not make it, Gordunov thought. But he did not know with whom he could replace him. Dukhonin had been his safety man, his watchdog on this side of the river. Now Dukhonin was gone. There was no one left he could trust.

He thought of Levin, the political officer. Levin didn't have any experience. But he would have to use him, if it came down to it. Perhaps Levin on the eastern bank, while he took personal command in Karchenko's area. Or wherever the action was the most intense.

Gordunov hated the thought of relying on the political officer. But then he hated to rely on any man. He could only bear counting on Dukhonin because they had both come from the Afgantsy brotherhood.

In the darkness, Gordunov collided with a body rushing out of the shadows.

They both fell. The body called out in a foreign voice.

Gordunov shot him at point-blank range.

A return burst of fire from beyond the body sought him in the dark.

Gordunov flattened and fired back over the body of the man he had just shot. When the body moved, Gordunov drew his assault knife and plunged it into the man's throat.

There were several foreign voices now, calling to one another.

Unfamiliar-sounding weapons began to fire around him.

Gordunov peeled a grenade from his harness, primed it, then lobbed it down toward the mouth of an alley.

As the fragmentation settled Gordunov crawled into a doorway. The door was locked.

"I'm s h o t . . . I'm shot. . ."

Bronch. The radio.

Gordunov held still. His radioman lay sprawled in the street, his boots still up on the sidewalk. He repeated his complaint over and over, aching with the damage a foreign weapon had done to his body.

Gordunov watched the darkness. Waiting for them to come out. As if

" RED ARMY

on cue, the radio crackled with unintelligible sounds. Then an electronically filtered voice called over the airwaves in Russian.

Come for it. Come on, Gordunov thought. You know you want it.

The radioman moaned, face down, his radio teasing the foreign soldiers.

Take the chance, Gordunov thought. Come on.

Movement caught his eye. And Gordunov was back in the hills of Afghanistan, brilliantly alive. He didn't let the leading figure distract him. He watched the point of origin for the covering man. When he had him fixed, he put a burst of fire into him, then shifted his weapon to catch the forward man against the side of a building.

The point man returned fire. But it sprayed wildly.

Gordunov pushed up far enough to break in the door. Then he scrambled to drag the radioman inside.

His hands slicked with blood. It reminded him of dragging a wet rolled-up tent. The boy seemed to be falling apart as he dragged him. He had clearly caught a full burst. Amazingly, he still whimpered with life.

Gordunov peeled the radio from the boy's shoulders, flicking the moisture off the mike.

"Falcon, this is Eagle."

"This is Falcon. Are you all right? We thought we saw a firefight."

"My radioman's down. I'm about a block down from you, just off on one of the side streets. Can you get somebody down here?"

"We're all ready to move out."

'Wo.'" Gordunov screamed. He twisted his body around so that his weapon just cleared the wounded boy, and he held the trigger back until the weapon clicked empty. The approaching shadow danced backward as the rounds flashed into it, crashing against a wall. Gordunov hurriedly reloaded, then pulled out his penlight, careful to hold the point of light well away from his torso.

It was an old man. With a hunting rifle.

Stupid shit, Gordunov thought. The damned old fool.

But it had spooked him. For the first time in years, Gordunov knew he had been caught completely off guard.

The wounded boy was praying. It didn't surprise Gordunov. Religious or not, he had known many a dying soldier to pray in Afghanistan. Even political officers, professional atheists, were not above appealing to a hoped-for god in their final moments. Gordunov forced himself back to business.

"Vulture, this is Eagle."

"This is Vulture."

145

Ralph Peters

"What's your status?"

"We have the southern bridge. Intermittent fighting in the town on both sides of the river. The organization you requested is on the way."

"Casualties?"

"Heavy. The British ambushed us the first time we went for the bridge.

But we cleared them out."

"How bad?"

"I've got about a hundred left."

"With your company?"