Cold War - Jerome Preisler [141]
This man Peter Nimec . . .
A man who led on the ground, risked his life along with those who followed him . . .
Burkhart knew he would not delegate the actual rescue to others.
It would be Nimec leading the way down the stairs, just as Burkhart himself had chosen to meet him.
Nimec suddenly halted on the stairs and raised his hand, stalling up the three men behind him. He wasn’t sure why. Or at least he couldn’t have stated why. It might have been simple caution. Or that he’d noticed a trace of movement below, heard something below, a subtle forewarning that someone might be down there—except he wasn’t even positive about that. But he told himself that they had better proceed very slowly until he knew.
“Hang back,” he said, and glanced over his shoulder at Rice. “I want to check things ou—”
The first outpouring of fire from below silenced him mid-sentence.
Nimec ducked sideways as the gunfire split the darkness, throwing himself against the stairway’s handrail, motioning for the others to do the same. He twisted his tac light to its flood setting, saw the figure of a man launch off the wall to the right of the bottom stair, and triggered a burst of return fire from his VVRS. The man slipped out of sight, into the shadows, but then Nimec saw another man swing his gun up at him. He released a tight hail of bullets, saw the man drop to the floor, or ground, or whatever the hell was waiting for him down there at the base of the stairs.
There was a second volley from the bottom, this time coming out of the darkness at his left. Rice had his gun up, his own tactical light set on “spot,” beaming a concentrated circle of brightness onto the center of the shooter’s chest.
He squeezed out a rapid burst and the man crumpled.
“Okay, move it!” Nimec shouted, bounding down the stairs, leading his men down the stairs, thinking there was no sense in them making stationary targets of themselves here on these goddamned stairs at this point.
More movement as he reached the bottom landing—a third gunner. Nimec raked the gloom with fire, heard an agonized cry, saw a body fall straight from the knees, a fine mist of blood glittering in the throw of his flash. At the same moment one of the Sword ops racing down the stairway behind him—Rice?—he wasn’t sure in the confusion—loosed a sustained barrage and took out another of the waiting shooters.
Silence then. Absolute silence.
Nimec took a quick glance back at his men, all of them down on the lower landing with him now.
“Everybody okay?”
Three nods.
Nimec stood warily, moved his gun from side to side, sweeping the area in front of the stairs with his tac light. Four men lay dead below them, NVGs over their eyes. He wondered if there had been any more waiting, thought of the one who’d opened fire and slipped clear of his initial return burst. Was he among those sprawled on the ground?
He had no sooner asked himself that question than the answer was violently delivered.
Burkhart sprang from where he’d concealed himself to the right of the bottom landing, raised the barrel of his weapon, released a crisp stream of fire. Bullets studded the risers beneath Nimec, throwing up a bright shower of sparks.
Nimec gestured his men back, his finger continuously squeezing the trigger of his VVRS as he leaped down the stairs and attempted to track the source of the volley with its flash attachment.
Darting clear of his shots, Burkhart brought up his gun for another staccato burst, heard a single sharp tak! as one of his own bullets ricocheted off the handrail . . . and then felt a slap on the upper left side of his chest, followed immediately by a hot needle of heat in the same region.
His finger still looped around his rifle’s trigger, Burkhart looked