to a position perpendicular to the target vehicle’s route. When he slowed the SUV to make the turn, Vitya would initiate the ambush with the IED. The vehicle would take fully automatic fire from the front and side, with 180 rounds in the first volley alone. No one in an unarmored vehicle would survive it.
Vitya watched the iPad impatiently as the target drove along the ranch roads. Just as it turned onto the highway, Tanya pulled up in her blue 2003 Jetta. She parked the vehicle on the road’s narrow shoulder and, as she’d been instructed, popped the hood. She stood helplessly in front of the vehicle wearing yoga pants and a tight tank top, hands placed on her hips. Assuming that chivalry was not yet dead in this northwestern part of the country, they were counting on their target stopping to assist the attractive motorist in apparent distress.
Vitya watched the red dot accelerate on the asphalt highway and knew from experience that it would be in the kill zone in less than five minutes. He moved the selector switch on his AKM to the Cyrillic marking for “full-auto” and set it down on the bed of pine straw beside him. Pulling the M57 firing device from his pocket, he connected it to the trailing end of the wire that led to the claymore mine’s blasting cap. Only the small wire safety bail stood between the device’s handle and a catastrophic explosion. He looked at each of the men on the assault team and received nervous but ready nods from them. He couldn’t see the camouflaged figures of his second element but was confident that they were in place. Everyone knew their jobs.
Vitya looked at his watch. He needed to give Dimitry a heads-up that the ambush was about to be initiated. Even in the unlikely event that their communications were being monitored, there wouldn’t be enough time for anyone to stop them. He pulled the sat phone from his pouch and pressed the preset key that would place a call to Dimitry’s identical unit. He held the device to his ear as he waited for it to connect to the satellite in orbit. Once the call went through, Dimitry answered almost instantly.
“Yeah.”
“We will initiate in five minutes, be ready.”
“Understood.”
Looking back at the iPad, he saw that the target was two minutes out. He fiddled nervously with the mine’s firing device, shifting it from one hand to the other. He heard the high-pitched whine of a diesel motor climbing the rise and a shot of panic gripped his chest. Reece didn’t drive a diesel. The driver let off the accelerator as the vehicle crested the rise and a blue flatbed F-250 pickup rolled into view. Whoever was driving had seen Tanya and was rolling to a stop in the kill zone. The driver pulled onto the shoulder opposite her Volkswagen and left the truck idling as he stepped down onto the pavement.
A tall mustached man in his fifties and wearing jeans, boots, and a denim jacket approached Tanya, no doubt offering his assistance. They were too far away for Vitya to hear their conversation. Her body language told the story; she dismissed the man with a wave of her hand, no doubt telling him that help was on the way. The man lingered persistently. Whether it was out of a genuine desire to help or because of Tanya’s tank top did not matter to Vitya; he needed this cowboy to get the hell out of the way. His eye moved back to the iPad, where the dot rounded the final bend before it would make its way up to the hill where they waited in ambush. This changed nothing; he would blow the mine and initiate the ambush no matter what.
* * *
Reece gripped the wheel with both hands as he steered up the steep grade ahead, driving slower than normal so as not to alarm his passenger. He let up on the gas pedal and let the Cruiser coast over the rise, spotting two vehicles pulled off the side of the road ahead of him. From a distance, it looked like a female with car trouble and a man who’d stopped to help. It was nice to be back in a place where people actually cared about their fellow citizens.
On cue, his iPhone came alive with the various indicators of the modern age as he entered the service area. Ordinarily he would sneak a look at his phone to