Arctic Storm Rising by Dale Brown (android based ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Sighting through his scope, Flynn found another target, a Russian prone behind a low rise. Only the man’s helmet and riflewere visible. He squeezed the trigger several times. More chunks of snow and ice sprayed up, torn by bullets striking homeat nearly three times the speed of sound. The Russian soldier disappeared, either hit or scrambling for new cover.

One of the enemy commandos got a grenade launcher in action. It coughed, hurling a 40mm caseless grenade up the slope.

Craack. The grenade detonated several meters behind the American line with a dazzling flash. Fragments whistled across the hill.“Shit!” one of the Three Amigos said suddenly, sounding surprised. “I’m hit.” From the deep Alabama twang, that was Leffert.His friend Sims reared up to take a look and then took a bullet in the shoulder, falling back with another shocked cry.

“For Christ’s sake, stay down!” Flynn yelled. He glanced to his left, toward the clump of rocks occupied by the two woundedAmigos. “Sims? Leffert? You okay?”

“I’m not hit bad, sir,” Leffert called back. “I can still fight. But Mike’s pretty bad. He’s losing a whole lotta blood andhis damn shoulder looks like it’s hanging by a thread.”

Flynn gritted his teeth. Besides being their radio and coms expert, M-Squared had also been tapped to be their unit medic.One more crime to lay at Takirak’s feet, he thought bitterly.

Down in the valley, the Spetsnaz grenadier popped back up, ready to fire again. This time, Hynes was waiting for him. Themachine gunner put a three-round burst right into his chest. The Russian fell backward in a red mist of blood and shatteredbone.

Flynn fired again at another commando darting uphill to gain a better position. He missed, and the enemy soldier threw himself down into a small depression on the slope, disappearing from sight. His jaw tightened. From the number of bodies now strewn across the valley floor, they’d already inflicted heavy losses on the Spetsnaz force. That wasn’t shocking, since surprise and cover both favored the Americans. But enough Russians had survived the opening fusillade and found cover of their own to turn this into a pitched battle—one whose outcome was still seriously in doubt. Now they were trying to establish a firm base of fire of their own, one that would allow them to keep Flynn and his men pinned down long enough for an assault force to close in and wipe them out in a close-quarters fight.

The M4 went dry. Rapidly, he hit the mag release, let the empty fall out, and slapped in another full magazine. Immediately,he opened fire again. At the same time, he felt as though his mind had split in half, with one part fully occupied by theneed to find and kill the enemy . . . and the other busy weighing different tactical options. Breaking contact and fallingback up the hill was a nonstarter. As soon as the Russians got into these rocks, they’d have all the advantages superior numbersand training could provide. And with Leffert and Sims wounded, he didn’t have enough able-bodied troops left to maneuver tothe right or left in the hope of taking those Spetsnaz bastards in the flank again.

“Which leaves what, Nick?” Flynn muttered, squeezing off more shots and feeling his M4 thud back repeatedly against his shoulder.“Pray . . . and hope for luck? Real good plan there, genius.” But then again, he thought grimly, what other options did hereally have?

In the narrow, brush-choked gully around the other side of the spur hill, Torvald Pedersen heard the sudden crackle of automatic-weapons fire when Flynn and the others sprang their ambush. The noise only grew in intensity as more and more rifles and machine guns joined the fray. Startled by the explosion of noise where there had been only silence and the hiss of the wind, he sat bolt upright, ignoring the stab of pain from his fractured leg. “Holy shit! You guys hear that? There’s one big, mother-humping battle going on!” He grabbed Rafael Sanchez by the shoulder. “Rafe! We’ve gotta go help the rest of the team.”

The big New Mexican nodded slowly, but then he frowned. “Yeah, but the captain told us to stay put.”

“Maybe we should call in and ask for new orders?” Boyd suggested from the other side. He’d unslung his own M4 and was crouchedat the lip of the shallow gully, watching the north. Dozens of split-second flashes brightened the night sky along the crestof the hill above them.

“Can’t,” Sanchez reminded them. “The captain ordered radio silence, remember?”

Pedersen nodded. “Exactly! Which is why we need to use our initiative, just like they trained us to do. Right?” he demanded.

Boyd pulled at his jaw. “Yeah, you’re right.” But then he waved a hand out across the open expanse of snow. “Trouble is, crossingthat valley right now looks a lot like suicide to me. If just one bad guy pops up and catches us out there without any cover,we’re fucking toast.”

“That’s why we stick to this streambed,” Pedersen argued. A frozen stream ran along the middle of the shallow, brush-lineddepression. It snaked down into the valley and then swung north.

“The sled won’t make it through that rough ground,” Sanchez said. “And you’ve got a busted leg.”

Pedersen grinned up at him. “That’s why you’re going to sling me over your shoulder again, big guy.” He lifted his weapon.“And my rifle, too, this time.” As the team’s designated marksman, Pedersen carried an M14 Enhanced Battle Rifle—a vastlymodified and improved version of the old 7.62mm weapon last used in the field by U.S. troops in South Vietnam. When equippedwith a telescopic sight, it had an effective range of more than eight hundred yards.

Spetsnaz Major Gennady Korenev risked a quick look up at the hill towering above them and ducked back again. More enemy rounds snapped through the air just over his head. Little geysers of snow and frozen clumps of earth erupted behind him. He scowled. The Americans were better shots than he’d imagined. And, barricaded in their improvised fortress of stone up