5.45mm and 7.62mm rounds whip-cracked just over Flynn’s head, smacking into boulders and then ricocheting away with weird, keening wails. Shards and splinters of pulverized rock spun away after them. “Stay low, Kodiaks!” he called. “And pour it into them!”

Sighting through his scope, Flynn found another target, a Russian prone behind a low rise. Only the man’s helmet and rifle were visible. He squeezed the trigger several times. More chunks of snow and ice sprayed up, torn by bullets striking home at nearly three times the speed of sound. The Russian soldier disappeared, either hit or scrambling for new cover.

One of the enemy commandos got a grenade launcher in action. It coughed, hurling a 40mm caseless grenade up the slope.

Craack. The grenade detonated several meters behind the American line with a dazzling flash. Fragments whistled across the hill. “Shit!” one of the Three Amigos said suddenly, sounding surprised. “I’m hit.” From the deep Alabama twang, that was Leffert. His friend Sims reared up to take a look and then took a bullet in the shoulder, falling back with another shocked cry.

“For Christ’s sake, stay down!” Flynn yelled. He glanced to his left, toward the clump of rocks occupied by the two wounded Amigos. “Sims? Leffert? You okay?”

“I’m not hit bad, sir,” Leffert called back. “I can still fight. But Mike’s pretty bad. He’s losing a whole lotta blood and his damn shoulder looks like it’s hanging by a thread.”

Flynn gritted his teeth. Besides being their radio and coms expert, M-Squared had also been tapped to be their unit medic. One more crime to lay at Takirak’s feet, he thought bitterly.

Down in the valley, the Spetsnaz grenadier popped back up, ready to fire again. This time, Hynes was waiting for him. The machine gunner put a three-round burst right into his chest. The Russian fell backward in a red mist of blood and shattered bone.

Flynn fired again at another commando darting uphill to gain a better position. He missed, and the enemy soldier threw himself down into a small depression on the slope, disappearing from sight. His jaw tightened. From the number of bodies now strewn across the valley floor, they’d already inflicted heavy losses on the Spetsnaz force. That wasn’t shocking, since surprise and cover both favored the Americans. But enough Russians had survived the opening fusillade and found cover of their own to turn this into a pitched battle—one whose outcome was still seriously in doubt. Now they were trying to establish a firm base of fire of their own, one that would allow them to keep Flynn and his men pinned down long enough for an assault force to close in and wipe them out in a close-quarters fight.

The M4 went dry. Rapidly, he hit the mag release, let the empty fall out, and slapped in another full magazine. Immediately, he opened fire again. At the same time, he felt as though his mind had split in half, with one part fully occupied by the need to find and kill the enemy . . . and the other busy weighing different tactical options. Breaking contact and falling back up the hill was a nonstarter. As soon as the Russians got into these rocks, they’d have all the advantages superior numbers and training could provide. And with Leffert and Sims wounded, he didn’t have enough able-bodied troops left to maneuver to the right or left in the hope of taking those Spetsnaz bastards in the flank again.