Free The Ten Thousand by Harold Coyle

Still he refused to believe it. In his youth he refused to believe that there was no way out.
    Coughing, Biryukov looked down the corridor again, then back at the sergeant. “Suppose, Sergeant, we decide not to cooperate with the enemy’s plan?”
    The young soldier piped up, “You mean we should surrender?”
    Biryukov shook his head. “No. I doubt that they would be willing to take our surrender even if we were willing to offer it. After what happened up there, they have blood in their eyes.” Biryukov paused, glancing once more down the long corridor before he continued without looking back at Popel. It was quiet, terribly quiet, like a tomb. “We must initiate the self-destruct sequence.”
    Popel didn’t answer at first. Looking back at him, Biryukov forced a smile. “It is, Sergeant Popel, time to put your treasonable knowledge to use.” Biryukov took his bloody hand away from his side and stretched it out. “As you can see, I cannot do it myself. I need your help, Sergeant.” A spasm of pain went through Biryukov’s body. Grabbing his side again, Biryukov forced himself to stifle a moan. When he could speak, Biryukov pleaded. “Please, Sergeant, hurry. We do not have much time. Do not fail me.”
    At the other end of the elevator shaft, Captain Smithy leaned over the open shaft, yelling to the last of the engineers struggling up the ropes to get a move on. This was taking too long for Smithy. The whole operation was not going the way he had wanted it to, and it was starting to piss him off. The gunfire from outside, barely audible to most of the men in his company that were in the assembly chamber, only served to increase Smithy’s anger. Turning to the platoon leader standing next to him, Smithy blurted,
    “Why in the hell did those yahoos have to take the elevator down to where the warheads were stored?
    Geez, why couldn’t they have used the other one? They really screwed this up.” Smithy looked down the shaft and mumbled again, “They really screwed this up.”
    The platoon leader, not knowing if his company commander expected an answer, merely shrugged.
    How had the Ukrainians’ action screwed up the operation? As far as the platoon leader could see, everything was in hand. They had cleared the upper chamber at the loss of one dead and three lightly wounded men. The initial portion of the Ukrainian reaction force was taken out by the rest of the company without any problem. And in a few minutes, after the elevator doors at the far end of the elevator shaft had been blown open, all they had to do was dump a few CS tear-gas and smoke grenades down the shaft, slide down the ropes, and clean up any Ukrainians who were still down there.
    The young platoon leader looked down the elevator shaft, then over at his commander, now pacing back and forth a few feet away, wondering what possibly could be wrong.
    The attack by the second BTR had caught everyone, except Ilvanich, by surprise. No one had heard its approach. Even the riflemen along the chainlink fence with night vision goggles failed to see the second part of the reaction force as it advanced up a gully to the right of the road. Only when a hail of 14.5mm rounds began to smack into the cinder block guard shack did the men of 1st Platoon go to ground and begin to search their assigned sectors in earnest.
    “TO THE RIGHT . BTR WITH DISMOUNTED INFANTRY COMING UP ON OUR RIGHT .”
    As if to underscore the warning, a hail of small-arms fire flew over Pape’s head from the direction of the gully that Ilvanich had pointed out to him. Looking over to the Russian, Pape saw that Ilvanich had his assault rifle up and was preparing to fire. “Son of a bitch! You were right!”
    Ilvanich did not respond to Pape’s comment. He only issued instructions to the surprised American.
    “Remember, you are shooting downhill. Aim lower than you normally would, otherwise your rounds will go harmlessly over their heads.”
    Turning back to his front, Pape prepared