The owners of the four trails came into view seconds later. Four white snowmobiles slowed as they neared. Each one of them carried two men. Each man was armed with firearms favored by the Russian military.
She slinked beneath the plane and headed for the left, rear landing gear. Zahra slid into cover behind the massive ski and watched the strike team move. They were, or had once been, military. That was plain to see. They moved in coordinated fashion. Zahra prayed that they weren’t Spetsnaz. The famed Russian special forces unit was one of the deadliest in the world.
“Who are you?” she asked no one.
The lead pair stopped and knelt. One man shouted back for the others.
“Move up!”
The words were in Russian.
She paid close attention to their clothes and even more attention to their weaponry. Her prior assessment had been correct. Each man was dressed dissimilarly from the next. Their weapons were from different eras, too. A few of the AK variant rifles were newer. Others looked at least two decades old.
Four of the gunmen rushed forward, rifles raised. They quickly scaled the ramp and headed inside. Zahra expected to see a line of hostages led out at gunpoint, but instead, she heard the
“Dammit.”
Two men headed for the parked Sno-Cat, and the last two stayed behind by the snowmobiles.
Zahra gritted her teeth. There was no clear avenue for her to launch a counterattack. As of now, there was nothing she could do. So, she’d need to stay put and wait for an opportunity to act.
She knew of one person who could throw a monkey wrench into these guys’ plans. Zahra had her own Russian mercenary on her side.
“Where are you, Yana?”
Yana dove away from the open loading ramp just as a bevy of bullets sizzled past it. She covered her head but looked back in time to see Zahra hit the deck and roll off, presumably uninjured. Yana didn’t typically care about what happened to others during a mission, but she had grown to like Zahra. The two shared similar personalities. Also, the archaeologist didn’t treat her differently. Yana’s profession didn’t bother Zahra.
More bullets struck the plane’s hull. This was why she hated not being properly armed. The only weapon she had on her was her pilfered tactical knife. It was currently out of sight, wrapped in a paper towel, and taped to her left forearm beneath her coat sleeve. She had learned to conceal weapons of all kinds in unique and interesting ways back in her time with the FSB and thereafter.
She’d lost sight of Kyle just before the attack. He had continued deeper into the cargo hold en route to the cockpit. Yana edged back toward the ramp, crawling on her hands and knees. She needed to see what had become of her teammates.
If Zahra were as smart as Yana knew she was, she’d be hiding until given an opening. She eyed the second Sno-Cat, looking for Hammet and Ethan. Neither man was visible from her angle.
Voices picked up outside. They shouted at one another in Russian.
“Not good,” Yana said. The Sixth Seal had been a powerful conglomerate of American, German, and Russian forces. Apparently, they still were. “Not good at all.”
Four men came rushing around and up the ramp. Yana scurried back and crawled underneath her team’s Sno-Cat. She pulled her boots under just as the roar of pounding feet greeted the inner belly of the Skibird. Yana kept moving, stopping once she was halfway between the front and back of the vehicle. She stayed quiet and listened. She half-expected to hear the strike force yell at the crew, gather them, and then lead them outside as hostages.
Instead, they opened fire.
The sound was deafening inside the cargo hold. Yana slapped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. She only opened them when she spotted Kyle fall to the ground, clutching his left arm. Blood seeped from between his fingers. Around him were the bodies of the second team.
Additional gunfire erupted further into the plane, up near the cockpit.
“Damn mercenaries.”
Yana understood the irony of her statement. She didn’t care, and she moved on. She slinked forward, pausing once she was a foot away from revealing her presence. Two sets of feet stepped between her and Kyle.
He was kicked in the stomach and yelled at to get to his feet. The assault caused his line of sight to drop onto her, and happily, he hid his surprise at seeing her beneath the vehicle. Slowly, Yana reached inside her left coat sleeve and plunked her blade free of its improvised sheath.
