Read Online Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) by Jack Murphy - Free Book Online

said, grabbing Maurizio’s sleeve. They
cut a hard left and descended down a snow bank. Both mercenaries
tripped in the knee-deep snow and rolled down the embankment. The men
flopped through the snow, the tank quickly bearing down on them.
    Maurizio lay on his back at the bottom, looking up at the ridge
as the automated tank rolled over the edge. The turret swung toward
them. The former Italian counterterrorist operator rolled the stock
of his Kalashnikov into his shoulder, ready to go down in a blaze of
glory. Both mercenaries fired ineffectively at the vehicle.
    The turret tried to lock onto its targets as the tank platform it
was attached to began to slide in the snow. The DShK opened fire,
12.7mm rounds spraying right in front of the mercenaries. Then the
tank lurched again and began sliding down the embankment. The
European mercenaries continued to fire, cycling through their
30-round magazines. Their bullets smacked into the tank armor, the
turret, and the machine gun.
    Now the robotic tank was sliding down on top of them. Maurizio
struggled to his feet. Grabbing Jacob with both hands, he pulled him
out of the way as the tank rolled over in the snow. It flopped down
just a few feet away, crushing the turret under the tank platform.
The treads spun, but with the vehicle flipped upside down. It was
going nowhere fast.
    The Dane and the Italian looked at each other with wide eyes.
    “ Che palle ,” Maurizio whispered.
    What a ball-breaker.

    * * *

    Bullets ripped just inches above Deckard and slammed into
the snow-covered runway, stitching a burst across the tarmac that
kicked up ice and debris. Deckard slid forward on his forearms, the
toes of his boots dragging as he attempted to gain purchase on the
ice. He got halfway up, stumbled forward, fell, and the tank was on
top of him. The mercenary lay as flat as possible, tightly gripping
his Kalashnikov.
    His ears rang as the tank rumbled over him, the clanking treads
passing on either side.
    Seeing daylight again as the tank passed, Deckard sprang to his
feet, ran a few more paces to catch up with the tank as it searched
for new targets, and jumped.
    His hand seized a thick rubber cable looping down from an antenna
on the back of the tank. With a sudden jerk, Deckard was lifted off
his feet and dragged behind the tank. With the AK slung over his
shoulder, Deckard reached out and grabbed the cable with both hands.
His gloves had a good grip, but his hands still slipped around inside
them. Knowing he was all out of options, Deckard ignored the pain in
his shoulders, gripped the cable tighter, and climbed hand over hand.
    As he gripped the antenna mast and pulled himself on top
of the tank, he saw over his shoulder that Fedorchenko’s employment
of smoke grenades for concealment had worked, confusing the tanks
while Samruk’s Gustav gunners began wreaking havoc.It
looked like they had already scored a mobility kill against one tank
as it spun in circles on one tread. The other looked permanently
decommissioned.
    The tank cut a turn underneath him, nearly throwing Deckard off
as he hugged the antenna mast. From the sensor array, he knew
immediately what he was looking at. It was not a manned battle tank,
but rather a deadly remote-controlled one. It was an unmanned
vehicle, receiving signal commands from the antenna he clung to. The
Russians called such a tank a Mobile Robotic Complex, and this
particular model was nicknamed the Wolf-2. Good for protecting Arctic
infrastructure since robots never got cold the way soldiers did.
    Since it was a robot, Deckard knew he didn’t have to actually
destroy the tank. All he needed to do was make it blind and deaf by
disabling its sensor array. Robots were a lot easier to game than
human beings since they operate within such strict programmed
parameters, much the same way he easily got underneath the attack
angle allowed by the mechanics of the machine gun turret. A human
operator would have known better.
    The tank was circling