Page 58 of Ascendent
Ruslan, leading his team from the south, answered. “Nothing from this end.”
“Nothing here,” Yuri rumbled.
“Let’s move.”
Ilya led the way to the gate. Another man, one of the two dozen Ilya had working with him in the forest, cut the chain. They filed in, rushing one by one and sweeping the entrance, setting up a perimeter until Ruslan’s team reported back in. Everyone was inside.
They lined up on the side of the runway, their boots against the edge of the asphalt, single file. Ilya silently counted down to the go signal.
Sergey squeezed his rifle. He exhaled.Sasha.
Everyone moved together, silent coordination. Shuffling feet and crinkling uniforms, the near silent sounds of a professional strike team. The crunch of asphalt beneath boots.
Ruslan’s whisper filtered through the radio. He was taking his team on a sweep of the MiG wreckage on the runway. Ilya held while Ruslan’s team poked at the charred skeletons of the jets. Dampened flashlights crawled over the wreckage. Sergey watched, kneeling on the edge of the tarmac, as Yuri and the rest of the team kept cover.
This had been Sasha’s home. This had been his base. Had he flown one of those crashed MiGs? How many times had he roared off this very stretch of asphalt? Andreapol was an interceptor base, a quick reaction force for any breaches of Russian air space. Only the finest fighter pilots were assigned to interceptor squadrons. Sasha had been one of the best of the best.
He wanted to puke. Sasha had it all. Until––
And now Sasha was on the run, again.Sasha. His heart screamed.Come home.
Ruslan radioed back. Nothing in the wreckage. No bodies. No weapons loaded on the MiGs for an attack. The preflight checks hadn’t been completed. It was like the jets had been dragged out there on purpose and set alight. He could still smell lighter fluid, he said.
Ilya and Sergey shared a long look. Starlight glinted off Ilya’s face mask. “Let’s move,” Ilya ordered.
They headed for the northwest end of the runway, Ruslan’s team moving in parallel across the pavement. They’d planned to choke the base off, set up a cordon and squeeze, prevent anyone who might be alive from escaping. Pairs of men split off, setting up at the choke points, roads that circled around and connected the barracks to the command bunkers and to the hangar.
Ilya, Yuri, and Sergey lead their breach team to the main hangar. Ruslan covered their approach from the shelter of the command bunker. A wide stretch of concrete spread between them. Helicopters used to park there. Lines were painted for helos to set down in, and for cars to park, as well. Base parking. But there were no cars.
They stacked by the door, a single file line. “This is where we saw residual heat signatures,” Ilya said over the radio. “Everyone be fucking ready.”
Sergey blew out fast, once, twice. Sweat trickled, a drop he could feel falling from his temple, in front of his ear, down his jaw, and down to his neck where Sasha had nuzzled, had pressed his lips in a lingering kiss.
He cleared his mind. Pushed the image of Sasha, the thought of his smile, his iceberg eyes, away.
Everything was silent. No sounds of movement, no idling engines or tires humming over pavement.
Adrenaline turned Sergey’s heart into a caged animal, his blood into raging rivers. His finger hovered over the trigger on his rifle, the barrel low and ready.
Ilya’s voice cracked. “Let’s go, go, go, go!"
Yuri broke down the door with his hands, ripping it from the hinges and flinging it across the concrete. Ilya ducked in and turned right. Sergey followed on his heels, pivoting left. “Get the fuck down, get the fuck down!” Ilya bellowed.
They moved fast, sliding along the hangar walls, scanning, dividing the room into sections as they scanned and moved, scanned and moved. Flashlights bounced everywhere, the team’s lights crisscrossing.
Haphazard piles of weapons appeared on the concrete floor. Rifles. Grenades. RPGs.
Bodies.
The first corpse appeared. Then the second. A scattered line of them, leading toward the back of the hangar, the darkest, furthest corner.
Ilya barked for the team to collapse, reform around him. Yuri grabbed Sergey and hauled him behind his shoulder as he towered beside Ilya. The team formed a phalanx that faced the blackness, the darkness that swallowed the line of bodies.
Their flashlights pointed to the ground, to the concrete. Sergey heard his breath shake, heard the hiss of oxygen whistle through his mask. Heard his heart pound. He felt his pulse in his fingers, his toes.
“Light it up,” Ilya ordered.
They raised their rifles, their flashlights mounted on the barrels, and illuminated the darkness.
