The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

survive all this, Bock thought. Wouldn't that be something? But his main thought
was that he'd avenged his Petra. It had been the Americans and Russians who'd
brought her death about. Germans had only been the pawns of the great players,
and the great players were paying now, Bock told himself, were paying now and
would pay more. Revenge wasn't so cold a dish after all, was it?
***
'Russian staff car,' the gunner said, 'and a GAZ truck.'
'Chain gun.' The track commander took his time identifying the inbound targets.
'Wait.'
'I love killin' officers . . .' The gunner centered the sight for his 25mm
cannon. 'On target, sarge.'
***
For all his experience as a terrorist, Bock was not a soldier. He took the dark,
square shape two blocks away for a large truck. His plan had worked. The
American alert, so perfectly timed, could only mean that Qati and Ghosn had done
their job exactly as he'd envisioned five months earlier. His eyes shifted as he
saw what looked like a flashbulb and a streak of light that went over his head.
***
'Fire, hose 'em!'
The gunner had his selector switch on rapid fire. The 25-millimeter chain gun
was wonderfully accurate, and the tracers allowed you to walk fire right into
the target. The first long burst hit the truck. There might be armed soldiers in
the truck, he reasoned. The initial rounds went into the engine block,
shattering it into fragments, then, as the vehicle surged forward, the next
burst swept through the cab and cargo area. The truck collapsed on two flattened
front tires and ground to a halt, the wheel rims digging grooves in the asphalt.
By that time, the gunner had shifted fire and put a short burst through the
staff car. This target merely lost control and slammed into a parked BMW. Just
to make sure, the gunner hit the car again, and then the truck. Someone actually
got out of the truck, probably wounded already from the way he moved. Two more
25mm rounds fixed that.
The track commander moved immediately. One does not linger where one has killed.
Two minutes later, they found another surveillance spot. Police cars were racing
down the streets, their blue lights flashing. One of them stopped a few hundred
meters from the Bradley, backed up and raced off, the track commander saw. Well,
he'd always known German cops were smart.
Five minutes after the Bradley departed for another block, the first Berliner,
an exceedingly courageous physician, came out his front door and went to the
staff car. Both men were dead, each torso ripped to shreds by the cannon shells,
though both faces were intact except for the splashed blood. The truck was an
even greater mess. One of the men there might have survived for a few minutes,
but by the time the doctor got there, it was far too late. He found it odd that
they all wore Russian officers' uniforms. Not knowing what else to do, he called
the police. Only later did he realize how disproportionate his understanding of
the events outside his home had been.
***
'They weren't kidding about the infra-red signature. This must have been some