“Illuminate!”

The platoon sergeant fired, skidding the flare flatly across the ice so it came to rest near the cave mouth, revealing it in a blue-white glare of burning magnesium. Lifting the whistle, Tomashenko blew a prolonged, piercing blast.

Around the perimeter, the RPK-74 squad automatic weapons raved a long, focused burst, their tracer streams converging on the cave mouth. A second later half a dozen rifle grenades impacted around the cave mouth, flinging Private Uluh’s body aside in a grotesque tumble. One of the grenades scored a clean hit down the throat of the tunnel, kicking a spray of snow and ice from the barricade across the mouth.

Tomashenko blew the double blast that signaled the cease-fire and the assault charge. Then he was on his feet and running for the cave mouth. For his own pride and the mastery of his platoon, he must be in the forefront of the attack.

His men were rushing the cave from all angles, pale spectral figures rising up from the ice, weapons lifted. But Tomashenko arrived first.

“Beware grenade!”

He tore the pin out of the RGN-86 and allowed the safety lever to flick away from the deadly little sphere. He counted two racing heartbeats before hurling the grenade into the tunnel mouth and pressing against the cliff face.

The heavy thud of the detonation sounded well back in the lava tube, snow and shock waves belching from it once more. Catching up his AK-74 from where it hung slung under his arm, Tomashenko pivoted in front of the cave mouth, emptying the thirty-round magazine in a single protracted burst. Sergeant Vilyayskiy was at his side, hosing out a second stream of bullets, sparks kicked up by the ricocheting slugs dancing in the cavern throat.

There was no replying fire.

As the remainder of the platoon deployed on either side of the cave entrance, Tomashenko and Vilyayskiy activated the tactical lights clipped under the barrels of their weapons.

Nothing. Beyond the swirling mist of pumice dust and picric acid fumes, this first length of tunnel was empty. The Americans must have withdrawn deeper into the cave before the attack.

Tomashenko slapped a fresh clip into his rifle. “Corporal Vlahvitich. You and your fire team will remain here covering the cave approaches. The rest of you, follow me!”

It was not an appealing concept, but it must be done. Hunched into a single file, they plunged into the deeper darkness of the tunnel.

Beyond the first turn of the passage, they had to cautiously work their way past a jumble of old radio equipment, smashed by the grenade attack. There was no sign of life or death here, either, but ahead a gash in the tunnel floor resisted the probing beams of their tactical light-a descent into a larger, lower passage. This would be a natural choke and ambush point.

“Flare,” Tomashenko breathed.

The noncom snapped a fresh round into the projector. Together, with utmost caution, they eased up to the entrance of the lower cavern, moving as silently as well-trained warriors can move.

“Now!”

Sergeant Vilyayskiy fired the illumination round into the gut of the blackness, and Tomashenko whipped his assault rifle to his shoulder, ready to send bullets after it.

The flare hit, bounced into the rear of the lower cavern, and ignited.

Barsimoi! There were only supposed to be two of them!

Half a dozen figures stood on the cave floor, backlit by the pulsing blaze.

“Back! Get back!” Tomashenko squeezed off a wild burst and threw himself away from the cavern entry. Clawing at his bandolier, he tore out another hand grenade, Sergeant Vilyayskiy mirroring his actions.

Tomashenko hurled the grenade down into the cavern, the steel sphere ringing as it bounced off stone. It exploded with a roar and an ear-popping shock wave. The Spetsnaz troopers shrank back as shrapnel screamed and whined around the cavern interior. A second grenade followed, a third. Smoke and powdered lava saturated the air, and a fist-sized chunk of rock dislodged from the tunnel roof, glancing off Tomashenko’s shoulder.

“No more!” he yelled in sudden fear. The whole damn mountain might come down. “Cease-fire!”

The echoing reverberations and the faint, ominous grating of rock against rock faded. There was only silence from the pit of the lower cavern. Darkness as well, for the volley of hand grenades had blown out the flare.

“More illumination, Sergeant!” Tomashenko commanded.

The flare gun coughed once more, sending another scintillating ball of light bouncing around the interior of the cave.

“We got them, Lieutenant!” Vilyayskiy exclaimed. “The bastards are down!”

They augmented the flare with their tactical lights, playing the beams across the cluster of bodies on the cavern floor.

“We only saw the two Americans. Where did these others come from?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant. Be careful. There may be more.”

There was something strange about the way those bodies lay so rigidly. And then it hit Tomashenko. There was no blood! They had killed no one! Those men down there had died fifty years before!

Swearing, Tomashenko led his men down the lava slope to the floor of the tunnel. They had blown apart the stiff, frozen bodies of their own people! The dead crewmen of the Misha 124 had been strung up like grotesque puppets on a network of climbing rope, criss-crossed between pitons driven into the walls of the cave.

In a growing fury, Tomashenko recognized the delaying action, deftly rigged by someone who would understand the psychology and instincts of a military force in a cave-clearing operation. And he, Pavel Tomashenko, had reacted just as his enemy had hoped. Of the Americans themselves, there was no sign. Nor was there any clue to the fate of Major Smyslov.

Tomashenko became aware of an uneasy murmur passing among the enlisted men of his platoon. They were soldiers of the Russian Federation, but they were also Yakut, not far removed from the magics and superstitions of their people.

“Spread out and search!” Tomashenko roared them into action again. “There must be another exit from this cavern! Another tunnel! Find it!”

It took several minutes of searching to find the passage into the next section of tunnel. It had been blocked with chunks of basalt stacked into it from the far side.

The Americans were buying themselves time. But to what end? They were still rats trapped in a sewer pipe. Unless…

“Forward! After them! Move!”

Recklessly Tomashenko dove through the gap into the next tunnel section. He must not give them the time and opportunity to set up any more of their monkey tricks. He had the numbers and the firepower. He would use them.

“Illuminate! Light this place up!”

Volleys of flares were hurled ahead, filling the tunnel with the scarlet light of hell, the chemical vapor for their combustion tainting the air and burning the lungs. This section of lava tube was as broad as a highway and as high as a two-story building. The platoon advanced fast and dirty, snaking through the jagged jumble of rock slabs on the cave floor in a leap-frogging overwatch, half the force moving while the other half covered, ready to unleash a storm of gunfire at the first sign of life or hint of resistance.

But there was none, and as the advance continued and the tunnel lengthened, Tomashenko’s fears began to solidify. And then there it was, a thick fall of pale, compacted snow drooling down the left side of the tube. The rock floor of the tunnel was slick with clear condensation ice, but this was from the outside. Damnation, there was a second exit, and the Americans had found it!

A series of steps had been axed into the face of the icefall. Sergeant Vilvayskiy scrambled up the slope for a closer look. “There’s a snow tunnel here! They must have escaped through it, then caved it in behind them.”