Sic Semper Tyrannis (49 page)

Erik blocked out the thunder of Ted's rifle firing again—and again—as he ran across the clear space between the forest and the front of the cabin.  He side-stepped the bodies and lowered his shoulder to throw his entire weight at full speed into the door to the women's cabin.

The wooden door exploded in a shower of splinters and busted pine planks.  Erik felt a momentary stab of pain in his right shoulder and neck as he careened through the door, just before his face impacted the ground on the inside.  He had expected a little more resistance—whoever had built the cabin clearly had not anticipated the need to keep people out.  Momentarily dazed, it took Erik a couple seconds to get to his feet and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.  He still had the pistol in his hand, so that was a good sign.  Off to his right, in the darkness, he heard a voice yell in Russian.

Just like Ted had told him, without hesitation he rolled to the left and brought up his pistol.  He sighted down his arm toward where he thought the sound came from and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession.  The explosion of fire and sound from his pistol reverberated inside the building even louder than Ted’s sniper rifle outside.  Erik, though temporarily blinded, did not stop and dropped to the ground again.  He rolled onto his injured right side back toward his original position.  His eyes had adjusted and as he got up from his roll and aimed where he thought his target might be.  He saw someone thrash around on the floor and held his fire.

He had been right. They had posted guards inside the women's cabin.  Before he could take another step, a woman screamed and launched herself at the guard on the floor.  As he opened his mouth to call for Brin, two more women landed on the Russian.  They screamed as they kicked and punched the wounded man.

Erik heard another shout in Russian behind him and spun to face the shattered doorway.  A guard appeared and held a rifle in front of him.  The Russian shouted again and swung the rifle side to side, as if seeking a target in the darkness. 

Erik knew he only had a few seconds before the man's eyes adjusted to the darkness.  As he aimed his pistol at the man’s chest, a body crashed in to the guard from the shadows and knocked the rifle to the floor. Women appeared out of the darkness and forced the man back outside.  They piled on him like sharks in a feeding frenzy.  His screams of anger turned to screams of pain their hands and feet connected with his now defenseless body.

Aware of no other threats in the immediate vicinity, Erik turned and made his way toward the rear of the building where he had last seen Susan.  He called out for Brin as a tidal wave of women and children made a break for the open door.  Erik raised the pistol above his head and tried to clear a path with his injured right arm as he fought against the current of bodies heading for the door.  Their voices rose to the point that Erik’s ears hurt.

The attack was in full force now and even over the screaming he could hear Ted's rifle bark again, mixed with the deep
rat-tat-tat
of AK-47s.  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard hunting rifles echo in the distance.

Erik got halfway through the building before the press of bodies became too much and he was slowly and inexorably forced towards the front of the building again.  He called out to Brin over and over again, interspersed with shouts for Susan and the children.  Women around screamed in terror.   The noise level was deafening.  Without warning, he suddenly felt the familiar grip of Brin’s soft hand in his.

"Brin!" he gasped

"You came back!  You're alive! 
You came back!
" she said as she shoved a woman out of the way in order to throw her arms around Erik's neck.

"Where’s Susan?  Where's the kids?" asked Erik.   He tried to shelter her from the press of people as they turned and began to work their way toward the door, carried along by the flow of bodies.

Over the sounds of battle outside and the screaming inside, Brin yelled, "They moved her to another building.  They took the kids with them."

Erik cursed their luck.  The AK-47s grew louder.  He could hear shouts and screams from outside the building now.  The Russians had launched their counterattack.

"We don't have much time.  We've got to get out of this building and find Susan and the kids!"

"This way!" Brin said as she pulled him toward the side wall.  As the women and children tried to escape, they surged toward the middle of the pathway.  Erik followed her lead and knocked aside empty cots.

Just as they reached the shattered entrance an explosion at the rear of the building knocked most of the remaining prisoners to the floor.  A hundred voices rose as one in a cry of panic and frustration.  Erik reached the limit of his patience.  The press of bodies would get them both killed and he would
not
allow that to happen, not now. 

He grabbed Brin around the waist turned his left shoulder forward and flung women out of his way like a bulldozer.   The open door and freedom lay just ten feet away and by God
nothing
was going to stop him this time.  Erik barreled through the bottleneck at the door and they staggered into the early light of day.  Most of the women ran straight out the door into the main area of the prison camp.   Only a few stragglers veered left and right in an attempt to find cover. 

Erik, a head or taller than most of the women, spotted a group Russian soldiers as they approached with AK-47s leveled.  He saw his chance and practically threw Brin toward the corner of the burned-out administration building.  He crouched low as they ran and used the riot to hide their movement.   It worked.  He collapsed in the rubble behind a partially destroyed wall.  Brin landed on top of him, out of breath.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Erik said.  “We’re almost there…just—”

"Did you see how many made it?"

A dozen AK-47s fired a volley on full auto and drowned out his answer.

THE SHARP REPORT OF a Dragunov sniper rifled alerted Gregor Stepanovich that something was seriously amiss in his prison camp. He knew of no reason for one of his men to fire that particular weapon.  More importantly, he knew that one of those rifles had been stolen when Erik Larsson had escaped.

Not in the Special Forces.  Ha!  I knew it…

Stepanovich frowned.  He was in the middle of an especially brutal interrogation, one he’d desperately like to finish.  Irritation mounted inside him as he stepped back to wipe his hands clean of American blood.

The soldier in front of him looked up from the floor, his face a complete ruin.  The insolence of the man—he actually
smiled
at Stepanovich.  The American spat blood and a few teeth onto the ground at Stepanovich his feet, then coughed.  After all that he’d done to the prisoner, the fool still smiled in defiance. 

Americans are insane.

"You find something funny?"  Stepanovich said as he dropped the bloody rag to the ground and reattached his utility belt.  That Dragunov rifle cracked again and again.  The walls of the interrogation cabin muffled the sound but it was still plenty loud.

"Yeah…this game is over, Ivan…" hissed the gap-toothed prisoner.

Stepanovich spoke in English: "You honestly expect me to be frightened by your sad defiance?  You will die today, you know?"  He looked at the clipboard on the table nearby.  “Mr. Purnell.”

The American’s insolent smile widened.  The torn flesh of his lips spread into a hideous grimace of death.  "So will
you
, pal."  He spat a bloody gob at Stepanovich’s feet.  It splattered his boot and left a gory smear.

Stepanovich froze when heard a different rifle that had a deeper, sharper report.  It was no Russian weapon that was for sure.  That could only mean one thing—an outside attack.  Locals.

Stepanovich drew his sidearm and shot the American prisoner in the forehead, finally erasing that gruesome smile.  He holstered the weapon and without another sound stepped over the body.  He crossed the interrogation room and threw open the door.  His ears were assaulted by the screams of dying soldiers—
his
soldiers—and the dull roar of what sounded like hundreds of voices from the east.

The women.  It has to be Larsson.  He’s back to collect his woman.

"And now the trap is sprung.”  He pulled the radio from his belt and brought it to his lips.  "This is Captain Stepanovich—squad one, execute your orders!  Squad two, move to your backup positions and cover the women's containment building.  Everyone else get to your positions!  We’re under attack!"

"
Captain!  Squad four is taking fire from the woods outside cabins three and nine!
" his radio yelped.  Stepanovich turned his head and listened to the sound of what appeared to be single-shot rifles echo across the compound.  He turned and begin to run in that direction to help coordinate defense.  Halfway there, the radio squawked again.

"Captain!  Cabins 11 and 12 under heavy attack!  They're everywhere!  There in the trees!"

Before Stepanovich could get the radio to his mouth, it broke squelch one more time.  "
Sniper!  Sniper by the admin—
" the transmission ended abruptly.

Impossible! 
The locals had been pacified—he had seen to that personally.  He’d sacked every town and looted all the supplies he could.  The survivors had been driven into the woods! 

Lenin’s balls, how the hell are the Americans still able to mount a coordinated attack?

Hunting rifles crackled in the distance at the same time from both the left and his right.  Over all the noise, the Dragunov reigned supreme.  He could only imagine what casualties his men suffered.

He paused, his pistol in one hand, his radio in the other.  He couldn’t decide where to head first.  No matter where Stepanovich turned, his men died, cut down by unseen attackers.  It wasn't possible!

"Squad one in position, there's fighting inside the women's quarters!  They’re starting to come out!"

Larsson.
  That's
where he would be.  So who fired the Dragunov?  Stepanovich turned and sprinted toward the north end of camp where the women's cabins had been.  He raised the radio to his lips as he ran.

"Kill them! 
Kill them all!
  All units this net, shoot anything that moves!  Execution orders are in effect!"  He hoped his men had the stomach to follow through with the ultimate solution to his prison problems.  He had handpicked most of the guards for just such a detached ability, but never actually expected to need the ‘nuclear option’.  The chaos before him left little room for strategy, however.  He needed to end this revolt and he needed it to end
now
.

As he rounded the last building before the women's cabin, he heard the musical sound of at least a dozen AK-47s touch off in unison.  The crescendo of terrified screams rose to an angelic level as he scrambled around the corner and brought his pistol up, ready to join in the melee.

ERIK THREW HIS BODY on top of Brin's when he heard the AK-47s.  They both screamed—the sound was terrifyingly close.   The collapsed wall of the admin building was the only barrier between them and the massacre. 

"Come on, we've got to get out of here!" Erik said over the noise.  He helped Brin to her feet and when he was sure that no one had seen them emerge behind the wall, the two of them sprinted forward.

Brin tugged on Erik's hand.  "We can't just leave them!”

Erik yanked her forward harder than he’d meant.  "It's too late for them!"  The screams of the wounded and dying nearly caused him to vomit, but he continued pulling Brin away from danger with relentless determination.

"But, you have a gun!" Brin pleaded.

Erik reached the corner of the charred building and brought Brin close to his chest, shielding her from the noise of the slaughter behind the wall. 

“There’s children in that crowd…” Brin whimpered.

"I have a
pistol,”
Erik snapped.  There's at least a dozen trained soldiers out there with fully automatic rifles.  If I step out and start shooting, they’ll cut us both down in a heartbeat.  We've got to get out of here—there's nothing we can do to save those women…"

And children…
Erik closed his eyes against the pain in his heart.  All those young lives ended in such terror and pain.  It was inhuman.  It was pure evil.  He clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt and opened his eyes.  It was as if he could hear Ted’s voice whisper in his ear:
Mission first.  Get.  Brin.  Out.

Erik peaked around the corner of the rubble pile and saw that the coast was temporarily clear.  The Russians had advanced toward the women's cabin.   Erik hoped no one would see them if they made a mad dash to the next cabin.  Beyond that cabin, there was a 30 foot patch of open space before the safety of the forest.

Freedom.  It was within his reach.  Maybe 100 feet away.

The sniper rifle cracked in quick succession.  Ted fired faster than ever—he must’ve seen the slaughter.  Erik hoped he wouldn’t snap the Dragunov in half in a rage. 

Erik could no longer tell from where shots had been fired.   Hunting rifles popped in the trees all around the prison camp, AK-47s roared, the screams of the dead and dying,