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  When the train was gone, Paulina and the others with her waited a few more moments, then emerged from the shack. The others came over from their hiding positions adjacent to the tracks and huddled together, all looking to Paulina for direction.

  “Prepare to load back up. We will report this but continue our mission.”

  “Do we know where they are going now?”

  “No,” Paulina answered. “But if we’re lucky, neither do they.”

  The young, waifish girl spoke up now. “Sergeant, is it okay if we take the dead guys’ guns?”

  Paulina smiled. This girl was getting the hang of it. “Hell yes, it is. They are nice ones.”

  CHAPTER 62

  USS BOXER

  EAST OF DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA

  29 DECEMBER

  Lieutenant Colonel Connolly was just getting up from his bunk to go for a run aboard the big flat deck’s exercise area, when a call came over the USS Boxer’s loudspeaker system. It was 0500, but still he heard the bosun’s shrill whistle call, and then an announcement. “Lieutenant Colonel Connolly to combat, Lieutenant Colonel Connolly to combat.”

  It was always a little embarrassing being called across the entire ship. With a complement of over 900 sailors and an additional 2,000 embarked Marines, the USS Boxer was a living city and the centerpiece for the two Marine Expeditionary Units under Colonel Caster. A small aircraft carrier, it carried most of the Marines’ all-weather AV-8 Harriers, its Cobra attack helicopters, the heavy-lift helicopters, and the light UH-1 Hueys, which had been in service with the Marines since before the Vietnam War.

  Connolly put on his remaining sock and tennis shoes and stepped out of his stateroom. He’d been stuffed into a room with the regimental operations officer, a fellow lieutenant colonel friend of his whom he’d been glad to bunk with, or at least he was until he realized the man was going to snore all fucking night.

  This, and the fact his body clock had been ravaged by flying around the world, accounted for Connolly’s rough early start on the day.

  He hustled into the combat information center and looked around. “Someone looking for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” said one of the Navy watch operators. “There’s a call for you from the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ office on the secure satellite comms.” He pointed to a bank of three satellite phones, one with a green light. Familiar with the setup, he sat at the radio terminal and checked his watch. All the eyes in “combat” watched him with curiosity.

  “This is Lieutenant Colonel Connolly.”

  “Good to hear your voice, boss.” It was Griggs.

  “Hey, Bob. Likewise. Things are heating up out here, and by that I mean the temp is over ninety and we’re about to fight the Russians.”

  “I picked up on the double entendre without the explanation, sir. Your jokes still suck.”

  Connolly said, “You woke up half the Boxer with your call direct to the ship. Let’s legitimate the expensive call on the taxpayers’ dime with something more than shit talking.”

  “I have some more for you on the Russians. French intelligence, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, has a man on the ground in Djibouti. He saw and cataloged all the Russian forces as they departed the port. He sent a pretty good update on the composition of the enemy forces.”

  “Just pretty good?”

  “Yeah. Trouble is, his transmission back to their headquarters was cut short. They aren’t sure what happened, but it seems he may have been compromised.”

  “Copy. Dangerous work.”

  “Here’s the gist of it. It’s a full brigade. Like, the equivalent of a Soviet-era brigade. Plenty of infantry, antiair, and a shit ton of artillery. I’ll send over the partial report we got from the French.”

  “Tanks?”

  “The Virginia-class sub that squeaked into the harbor wiped out two of the three refuelers. The Pentagon estimates they lost over 145,000 barrels. Right now their tanks are under guard by Russian forces just outside of Djibouti City. We think they just left them behind because they didn’t have the gas.”

  Connolly whistled. “Damn, leave it to the Navy to take out more tanks in this conflict than the Army and Marine Corps combined.”

  “We figure they are trying to get more fuel sent in somehow. The Russians didn’t bring them all the way here just to have all their tankers bask in the sun on the beach, and they have to figure that once they take the mine, they’ll have to hold it by force. Maybe the Kremlin will make a deal with some other African nation to provide the fuel, or else they’ll just take it. But that will take some time.”

  “How long?”

  “Best guesstimate from up here is only about five days to refuel and reach you.”

  “Wonderful. So if we don’t figure out how to counteract the advancing Russian force and build up defenses in the mine in five days, we’ll be facing the Russian reinforcements in the form of heavy armor?”

  “Yep, and we’re talking a lot of armor. A battalion of tanks. And that’s just part of it. Fronting the brigade moving south toward Kenya now is a Russian special forces unit led by a guy named Colonel Yuri Borbikov. All sorts of stories about this joker, and it turns out he has a history at the mine. He was the Spetsnaz commander at Mrima Hill when Moscow sent the order to surrender the mine three and a half years ago. He walked out of there with his tail between his legs, but now apparently he’s heading back with a vengeance.

  “I’m sending his digital dossier to your SIPR computer now. Got some tidbits from Melanopolis. They were able to dig up a lot of material on this guy from intel sources in Moscow. Connecting the dots . . . looks like this is the bastard who masterminded this whole operation, from the blitzkrieg across Europe to the capture of the mines.”

  “Bob, he hasn’t captured the mines yet.”

  “Uh . . . that’s right, and you won’t let him, will you, boss?”

  Connolly sighed. “Things would be better if AFRICOM was still up and running the show. There’s a lot of confusion down here. Without that headquarters, we’re kind of running blind. Also, all the preexisting contacts with the countries we need to work through are null and void. The word I’m getting about the Kenyan government in Nairobi is they sound ready to let the Russians have the mine because they want a good relationship with whoever’s there. Guess they figure if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

  Griggs said, “We’re hearing the same thing at the Pentagon. Everyone in Africa remembers us stepping on our crank in Somalia a while back. Shades of Black Hawk Down and all that. Kenya doesn’t trust America to pull this off, so they’re betting on the inevitable and staying out of the fight.”

  Connolly blew out another sigh. “Any progress back there?”

  “Department of State is trying their best. They counted on AFRICOM as well when it came to liaising with African nations. Most of the military attachés didn’t reside in those countries; they just went down for negotiations when necessary. I guess that was the whole reason for having AFRICOM up in Europe. Everyone always assumed EUCOM was the more important of the two missions. No one predicted that colocating the two headquarters endangered the AFRICOM mission as much as the EUCOM mission. I think it’s going to take months before we have leadership cobbled together. In the meantime, Colonel Caster down there on the Boxer is in charge of the whole region’s military affairs on behalf of the United States.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him.”

  “Just be careful you don’t get squashed like the little road bumps you are on the strategic maps up here at the Pentagon.”

  Connolly chuckled. “Any more good news?”

  “Let’s see . . . Oh, yeah, Julie says you have to take the garbage out for a year once you get back.”

  “What?”

  “Had dinner at your house last night. Man, you never told me about Julie’s meat loaf. Frickin�
�� heaven on a plate, boss.”

  “Seriously? You’re eating at my house?”

  “Yep, and taking Jack to baseball practice tonight.”

  “Well . . . thanks for that.”

  “You bet. Just get back home in one piece, okay, boss?”

  “I’ll do my best. Gotta run. We’re landing in three hours.”

  “Kick ass, Marine,” Griggs said, and Connolly smiled.

  * * *

  • • •

  NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

  29 DECEMBER

  Caporal Konstantine crept up to his captain’s position on the hill. His French special forces three-color, or “trico,” desert camouflage was soaked with the sweat of exertion in the African heat, which made the red Ethiopian dust cake to his uniform like a thin layer of mud. All the Dragoons’ locally acquired vehicles were parked down below the small, sandy hill in a line of heavy shrubs off the road, masking them from view from the north. Konstantine glanced down at the men, busy at their work cutting foliage for camouflage and setting up temporary barricades on the road.

  As he made it to the top, he could see Apollo looking through his binoculars, fixated on Route 51. A small dust cloud had appeared in the morning light, but it looked like it came from a group of vehicles, just a few Bongo trucks. Bongo was actually a brand name for a vehicle manufactured by both Mazda and Kia. Light-duty trucks, they were ubiquitous in Africa as the best means to transport everything from people to khat, and they were often adorned with lace or colorful fabric and painted in bright colors.

  Apollo put the binos down on the open flak jacket he was using to keep the dust off his gear. His FN SCAR-L carbine lay in front of him next to his body armor, which he’d taken off to remain low. The ejection port of his weapon was positioned up and out of the sand and dirt.

  Konstantine said, “Sir, I have good news. We have comms back up.”

  “Bon, I could use some.” Apollo pulled the binos up to his eyes again. Still no telltale columns of red in the sky. He knew a mechanized column would throw up a hell of a lot of dust. But he only saw the two covered Bongos making their way toward his position. He wasn’t especially concerned; he’d seen several similar vehicles in the last half hour, mainly taking things to and from the market.

  Apollo focused on the two Bongos. “Tell Sergent-Chef Dariel to stop those trucks. They might have some intel on the Russians’ location.”

  “Yes, sir.” Caporal Konstantine scrambled back down the scraggly hill toward the roadblock, positioned behind the hill so the vehicles approaching from the north could not see it.

  Apollo looked to the distance again, well beyond the trucks and off toward the horizon. A change in hue in the low sky there sparked his interest. It wasn’t more than a haze, slightly reddish brown, but he’d worked reconnaissance for years and his instincts told him this meant a large group of vehicles was on the horizon.

  “Hey, Konstantine!” he yelled down, hoping to stop the caporal before he got too far. Hearing nothing, he took one last long look at the cloud, then peeled his eyes away from the eyecups and looked back down the hill.

  The two trucks had made the turn, and now they drivers saw the barricade of oil drums blocking their path. They slowed and stopped.

  Three Dragoons approached the simple vehicle barricade they’d constructed. Two stood watch from about fifteen meters away as the other continued forward.

  Apollo was starting to turn away to redirect his attention back to the haze in the distance when he heard the loud and unmistakable sound of Kalashnikov fire.

  He turned back to see smoking, firing gun barrels jutting from windows of both small trucks. The three Dragoons in the road fell immediately, but two of them were able to scramble back to a ditch full of dry brush on the near side of the road.

  The third man had been closest to the truck and now he lay motionless in the dirt.

  Fuck, thought Apollo. He realized this was a Spetsnaz unit conducting forward reconnaissance.

  He kicked his legs around, braced his weapon on his body armor lying in the sand, and pointed the muzzle to the southwest, facing the action. He extended the bipod on the front of the SCAR and took a high-profile prone aiming position. Through his six-power scope he could see the Russians clambering out the opposite-side doors, likely just as surprised by Apollo’s men as the Dragoons had been by the Russians.

  The captain squeezed the trigger. The sharp report wasn’t enough to make him take his eyes off the target. He could see where the round hit, as dust jumped off the top of the vehicle.

  He squeezed off another shot.

  This time he fired through the roof near the back door. He was rewarded by seeing a man fall over from behind the vehicle, his rifle tumbling down with him.

  Men began bailing out of the far sides of both trucks.

  Apollo pulled his rifle to the right, focusing on the second vehicle. Its driver was apparently still alive, and he jammed the truck into reverse. As he did so, four Russians who were using the truck for cover were exposed. They turned and ran alongside the vehicle, firing wildly at the troops by the vehicles next to the sandy hill.

  Apollo dumped rounds at the moving truck, this time hitting the driver’s window. The Russians behind it continued shooting through the windows and over the hood. A heavy staccato of gunfire continued between the French and Russians.

  Apollo remained undetected for now, above the fray. He used this to his advantage as the Russians focused on Dariel and the men down by the French vehicles.

  The captain lined up another shot into the driver’s window of the rear vehicle.

  Bang.

  The Bongo truck veered backward off the road and came to rest 120 meters away from Apollo’s perch.

  The Russians behind the rear truck could tell they were getting hit from a different angle at the same time that one of the surviving Spetsnaz soldiers behind the first vehicle noticed the shooter on top of the hill. He dumped rounds from his AK-47 at Apollo.

  Apollo shifted his aim to fire at the man.

  Bullets whizzed over his head now and more impacted the dirt in front of him, kicking dust up into his riflescope. He took a breath and then exhaled slowly, counting silently, and on three he squeezed the trigger. The Russian by the front truck dropped, a dark red stain expanding on the white sand beneath him.

  By now all the Russians were wise to Apollo’s sniping from the hilltop and had taken up good concealment next to the engines of both vehicles and in a shallow ditch on the far side of the road. From his position Apollo tried to fire down into the ditch, but the angle wasn’t right and the surviving Russians maintained their cover.

  At the bottom of the hill, Sergent-Chef Dariel began ordering his men to slowly close in, using fire, and maneuver. Some continued shooting while a few bounded forward and took prone positions in the dirt. The French might not have picked the time of the attack, but they had carefully chosen the terrain to offer at least a small advantage. The Russians, even using their vehicles for cover, were on the downslope and stuck by the dual-laned dirt road with no natural cover available save for the runoff ditch.

  A loud pop followed by a long fizz sound, along with a trail of white smoke that shot just over the heads of his men to his left, confirmed to Apollo the presence of an RPG.

  Although they were outmatched by French manpower and firepower, these elite Russian soldiers were not going down without a fight.

  Apollo increased his rate of fire. His men had by now brought the machine guns into the fight, and he knew this would keep the enemies’ heads down.

  It was unlikely these Spetsnaz men had a handheld radio that could effectively reach the main Russian column, which Apollo assessed would now be about twenty kilometers north and approaching fast. The telltale plume of dust he’d seen on the horizon and the presence of the special forces troops in his midst told him they were operating i
n a pretty standard Russian method: Spetsnaz out front scouting the way. They’d have light-armored mechanized forces next, then the heavy stuff. Tanks if they had them, or armored personnel carriers if not.

  He wanted to quickly eliminate this small force in front of him, because he and his own unit wouldn’t stand a chance against the light-mech forces that were almost certain to come next.

  Apollo made a quick calculation in his head. If the Russians had not yet made solid radio contact, and his observations on their commanders making haste were accurate, they’d be driving pretty much full bore. On these roads that probably equated to fifty or sixty kilometers per hour, and at that rate and distance they’d be here in twenty minutes. There was no time to trade shots carefully, or very soon he and his men would be overrun by hundreds and then thousands of Russians. Also, if they didn’t keep these surviving Spetsnaz men fully occupied, the Russians would be able to raise their antenna and radio a warning.

  He had to somehow inform Sergent-Chef Dariel that they needed to assault the Russians in their cover, but he was nearly seventy-five meters to the east of the rest of his unit.

  He decided he wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to do; he would show them. If Apollo attempted to attack all the way into the Russians, his men would understand.

  Surely they wouldn’t let him go it alone.

  He hoped.

  Apollo climbed up to his knees, fully exposed to the enemy. He pulled his magazine out of his carbine and hefted it. No more than ten rounds left, he thought. He tossed the magazine into his drop pouch and slapped a fresh one into the magazine well. There was already a round in the chamber, so he just stood, sighted back in, and advanced down the hill in a crouch. His men kept their heavy fire up, so he decided to hold his own fire to try to flank the enemy and surprise them from the east.