Frozen Conflict (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 4)

by Peter Nealen

  He didn’t want to risk the radio that close.

  ***

  Once they were well back in the woods, no longer able to see the barn or the farmhouse, and far enough away that he was fairly sure they wouldn’t be heard, Childress halted. He was sweating under his coat and poncho, and his throat was downright raw. His head was starting to pound from the cold, too. Recon ain’t fun, and it’s worse in the cold. He knew he was going to have to eat something soon, or risk going down from sheer exhaustion. Moving in the cold burned a lot of calories, and no one had ever accused gawky Sam Childress of carting around an excess of body mass.

  He and Wade were settled into a slightly thicker stand of trees, Wade facing back down the slope, his rifle at the low ready, while Childress pulled the black radio out of his coat and switched it on. He kept the volume low, even as he checked his watch, carefully shielding the illuminator’s glow with his gloved hand. They’d set comm windows, precisely to make sure that nobody was compromising another team by talking on the radio when they were too close to where someone might hear.

  It was getting toward the end of the first window; it was almost 0200. Lifting the radio to his lips, he murmured, “This is Hilljack. Bullseye.”

  After a long moment, Brannigan’s voice came back over the speaker. “Kodiak acknowledges.” That was all. It was all they could afford. The rest would get the message and start to converge on the Belochi rally point.

  Hopefully they’d be able to rally up and get set for the hit before the sun came up.

  ***

  Redrum was leaning against the wall inside the barn, keeping close to the burn barrel. He didn’t like the cold. Never had. He’d grown up with long, brutal winters, and preferred the desert anymore.

  He didn’t even like to smoke, but the Sobriyanie Black Russian was at least warming him up, even though he had to suppress the urge to cough every time he took a drag.

  “Hey, Redrum?” Faust said quietly. None of them wanted to talk very loudly, not with the sounds coming from the stall down at the other end of the barn. Flint was having his fun.

  “What’s up?” he asked, glad of the distraction. He was tired as hell, but he couldn’t afford to go to sleep. Not only were they in the middle of the op, but he didn’t want to sleep before Bèstia, never mind Flint and his presumably hand-picked pack of psychos. He’d probably wake up with a knife to his throat, if only as a “joke.”

  Faust was frowning at the laptop in front of him, that he had hooked up to a high-tech radio frequency scanner. It wasn’t so different from a police scanner, except that it could pick up a lot more frequencies. It couldn’t crack encryption, but it could tell that somebody was sending. “This is weird,” he said.

  “What is?” Redrum asked, biting back the urge to add some choice implications about Faust’s character. He was in no mood for playing coy.

  “Somebody just sent a transmission, somewhere within half a klick, and got a reply,” Faust said, frowning. “Not one of ours.”

  “Transnistrian?” Redrum asked, squatting down to look at the screen. “Or Russian?”

  “Neither,” was the answer. “It’s a civilian channel, like off a commercial handheld. And they’re speaking English.”

  Redrum frowned. “What did they say?”

  “I don’t know,” Faust replied. “It was just a callsign and the word ‘Bullseye.’ Then a different callsign acknowledged.”

  “Brevity codes,” Redrum said. His weariness was forgotten. “I think our friends are somewhere close.” He got up. “I’m going to go have a chat with Little Buddy over there,” he said. “Start getting packed up to move, just in case.”

  ***

  “Mayòr Ignatiev?” Abalyshev said, “we think we might have pinned down where the foreign mercenaries went with Codreanu.”

  Ignatiev squinted up at his comm specialist, then checked his watch. He’d gotten to sleep only an hour and a half before. Still, he hadn’t joined Spetsnaz, or volunteered for this operation, expecting a lot of sleep or comfort. He flipped his sleeping bag open and levered his legs out and off the cot. “Brief me,” he said.

  “Several witnesses that the Transnistrians interviewed said that a truck headed north from the compound after the attack,” Abalyshev said. “We lost the trail, though we’ve had drones up to look for them. But we just picked up broadcasts on civilian channels, speaking in what sounds like an English code. Presuming that they are the same Westerners that were reported crossing the Dniester a few days ago, they are somewhere between Haraba and Belochi.”

  Ignatiev shook off the last of his fatigue. This was perfect. He could even complete his mission without having to conduct the riskier operations he’d planned. These Westerners had done it all for him. He just had to have their bodies to show to the world, and Moscow would have the clearance for action they wanted.

  With dead Western mercenaries in Transnistria, Moscow could say that NATO was beginning a concerted effort to destabilize Russia’s allies, pushing deeper into the Motherland’s sphere of influence, openly and actively attacking her interests. The response would be more Russian peacekeepers in the PMR, and a tightening of the ring around Ukraine.

  “Go find Lopatin,” he said. “Tell him to get the men ready to move. Then contact Beksryostnov and tell him to get units moving toward Belochi. Give him whatever information he needs to get his ass moving.” He was sure that Beksryostnov would respond. The fat old man didn’t like having his comfortable, if miserable existence disrupted, but Ignatiev had read the man well enough to know that he saw an opportunity to get out of the PMR early, and on good terms. He’d send the troops.

  Lopatin ran through the door as Ignatiev was lacing his boots. “Have the men ready to move, in at least three elements, in the next ten minutes,” Ignatiev said. “We need to get to the north, ready to cut the Westerners off if they try to flee.” He stood and grabbed his A-545. “Move.”

  ***

  The man Redrum had nicknamed “Little Buddy” was sleeping in the farmhouse, an empty bottle of vodka nearby. His head was cocked back and his mouth was open, snoring loudly.

  Redrum kicked the bed, and got a snort in reply, but the man didn’t wake up. Probably drank the whole damned bottle. He kicked the bed again. This time he got some movement, a pause in the snores, but they quickly resumed again.

  Swearing viciously, Redrum reached down, grabbed the man by the throat beneath his dark beard, and dragged him off the bed. Still holding him up by his throat, he slapped the weaselly-looking Russian thug across his pointed face before dropping him to the floor.

  Gogol Gogolevich choked and sputtered, gasping for breath as he rolled on the dirty floor, the wind having been knocked out of him.

  “Awake now?” Redrum asked.

  “Da,” Gogol wheezed. He looked up at Redrum, who must have just been a looming shadow above him. “What time is it?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Redrum said. “Your services are required.”

  “For reasonable fee…” Gogol’s English wasn’t great, but he could make himself understood. He’d initially tried to feign only speaking Russian, but Redrum had threatened him until he’d finally switched, sullenly.

  “Your ‘reasonable fee’ is gonna be your ass if you don’t get up and get a move on,” Redrum growled. “You’ll get your money when we’re done. Even more than you’re asking. But not before then.” He stepped back and let Gogol get painfully and unsteadily to his feet. “We’re going to need to clear out and move to that fallback position,” he continued.

  “Oh, yes, fallback position,” Gogol temporized. “Is not far. Fifteen-sixteen kilometers.”

  “Great. Fine. Get your ass up and get ready to go.” Redrum left him and headed back out, his mood getting blacker with every step. He was going to have to interrupt Flint, and that was going to be fun. He doubted the sadistic fuck had gotten much more than warmed up, and he wasn’t going to be happy about having to put things on hold. But if they got hit, it wasn’t going t
o matter how far he’d gotten.

  Redrum briefly considered just setting an ambush, but that wasn’t the mission. Get Codreanu’s contacts, make him disappear, and get out. That was the mission. He could worry about these Americans hunting them once that was done.

  He was looking forward to that. Reckoning’s coming, assholes.

  Chapter 15

  The Belochi rally point wasn’t far from where Childress and Wade had paused to send their report. Two by two, the Blackhearts closed in, making contact and conducting linkup procedures the old-fashioned way, knocking on trees or the buttstocks of their rifles.

  It was eerily like the signals the North Koreans they’d fought in Burma had used. In a way, they were the same thing. Tactics and signals were tactics and signals. Most of the mercenaries had learned over time that there was very little new under the sun. Techniques that were valid in the 1940s were often still valid. They might need some tweaking for current tech and the situation, but much of surviving combat comes down to common sense.

  The Afghan Taliban had been using tactics and techniques used by the Vietcong two generations earlier, after all.

  Curtis and Javakhishvili were the last ones in, having had the most distance to cover. Curtis was carrying the RPD as easily as the rest were carrying their rifles. He was short, but he was a bodybuilder as well as a gambler, and he’d never had a problem handling a machinegun. The RPD was probably light to him.

  The faintest suggestion of dawn was starting to lighten the eastern horizon, on the other side of the fields. Sunrise was still a little over an hour away, but it was coming fast.

  “All right,” Brannigan whispered, looking around at their tight little perimeter. The Blackhearts were all on a knee in the snow, shoulder to shoulder to better hold security, as well as hold in some warmth. They’d been working hard all night, but it was cold, and the longer they were in one place, the colder they were going to get. The last thing they needed was to have somebody go down from hypothermia. “We’ve got exactly no time to get fancy. Bianco, Curtis, Herc, and Hart, you’re the base of fire. Set up high, directly above the farm. The rest of us are going to push down to the southeast and approach from there. Simple L-shape. Breach and clear as we go. Base of fire, shift as we move through. Watch your targets. And remember not to shoot the damn hostage.”

  There hadn’t even been time to build a terrain model. Childress had scratched an outline in the snow with a stick. The six other Blackhearts who weren’t on security watched as he pointed to spots on the outline. “From what Sam says, they’re probably parked in the barn, here, on the northwest side of the farmhouse. Farmhouse is dark, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not occupied, so we’re going to have to clear that, too.” He hastily sketched out the rest of the scheme of maneuver, getting terse, monosyllabic acknowledgements as he went.

  It wasn’t the ideal brief, and his map left more than a little to be desired. But it was what they had time for. “Daylight’s coming fast,” he finished. “Sip some water, eat something real quick, and get ready to move. We roll in five.”

  He looked at the graying eastern horizon for a second, as he pulled out his own water bottle and took a gulp. If they moved fast enough, they should hopefully hit the farm right at daybreak, when the light was at its worst, and traditionally, when sentries were at their least alert. Of course, if the same terrorists they’d fought in Mexico were down there, then he could probably expect them to be professional enough to go to stand-to during that time. They could very well have a hell of a fight on their hands in the next thirty minutes.

  But they were fighting men, all of them, and they all knew what they’d gotten into. He wasn’t worried about the Blackhearts freezing or stampeding. They’d adapt, and they’d fight. He forced his worries about the assault to the back of his mind. He needed to stay focused on the task at hand, moment by moment, for the next couple of hours. Worry tended to cloud the mind when it needed to be at its clearest.

  At the same time, he couldn’t completely avoid the question of what they’d do after they got Codreanu. If Javakhishvili had been right, and the Transnistrians were considering closing their entry ports, then getting out of the PMR was going to become a lot harder. Paranoid Soviets—and he couldn’t think of the Transnistrians and their Russian allies as anything else at the moment—would immediately glom onto a bunch of Americans, especially after two major firefights in as many days.

  If Dalca’s scheme had been trustworthy, they probably could have laid low with her contacts in the local Russian underworld. But that was out the window for the moment; in fact, it had been ever since Gorev had disappeared.

  He shook his head irritably. Deal with those problems when they come. Nothing you can do right now to affect the outcome, so focus on the near-term fight. Be a team leader. There’s no other role for you right now.

  He knew that he had to consider their follow-on plan, but most of the time, officers had the luxury of doing that because the team leaders, squad leaders, and platoon commanders were handling the small stuff.

  It was time. Pointing to Childress to take point, he got to his feet and got ready to move.

  Game time.

  ***

  Even as the Blackhearts started moving, a column of trucks and BRDM armored cars was racing up the M4 Highway toward Belochi. In the backs of the trucks and the troop compartments of the BRDMs, Transnistrian and Russian soldiers held their rifles between their knees, their faces blank, each man mentally preparing for a fight that, with a few exceptions, none of them had ever faced before.

  Those exceptions, the handful of veterans of Chechnya and Dagestan, waited as impassively as their subordinates, though with different thoughts running through their heads. Some faced the imminence of gunfire with dread, remembering how awful it had been in the mountains full of red-haired Muslim black-asses. Others looked forward to it eagerly, glad to finally have a chance at a fight again, after all this sitting around, marking time until getting rotated back home.

  The word got passed around to the troops. They’d be on target in five minutes.

  ***

  Vincent Bianco liked the snow well enough. He just didn’t especially like being out in it. If he had a choice between going skiing and staying in by the fire with a video game or even an old-school role-playing game with friends—though he’d have a hard time finding other gamers in this crew, he did have a dedicated veteran group back home—he’d pick staying in with the game in a heartbeat.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t handle himself in the snow. It had just been a long time. And he was struggling to keep up with Curtis, of all people. Curtis was a black guy who lived in Vegas.

  He huffed a little as he tried to close the gap. The RPD was lighter than the MG3 he’d carried in Burma, but Burma had been a while back. He could see the clouds of vapor blowing out of his mouth and nose as he went. The exertion was doubled by the need to move quickly while trying to avoid sliding down the hill in an uncontrolled skid.

  He started to let himself imagine that he was working his way through the northern woods of his newest campaign. He wasn’t letting his mind wander, not quite. He was just finding his own, slightly nerdy motivation. It was easier to think about being an adventurer—which in a real sense he was—than just how painful this job was.

  Curtis stopped suddenly, off to his left, and Bianco took a few more steps before sinking gratefully to a knee behind a tree. Letting yourself go, Vinnie. No Bueno. He’d have to start adding a bit more cardio alongside the weights. He hated running, but maybe he should start rucking again.

  He peered around the tree trunk, trying to see just what had triggered Curtis’ abrupt halt. He could see the farm ahead, the house and barn looming between the trees, but he hadn’t seen any movement.

  Then a flicker of light off to the left caught his eye, and he followed it. Oh, shit.

  There were headlights coming up the road toward the farm. A lot of them. The rumble of engines drifted through the wood
s. And some of them sounded big. They sounded like armored vehicles.

  Curtis had gotten down behind his tree. They were still a little farther away from the farm than they’d planned, but running down into the path of that column of vehicles wasn’t going to be a good idea. He hoped that Brannigan and the rest saw the vics moving and stopped, even as he got down low himself, deploying the RPD’s bipod and trying to get behind it. The slope wasn’t bad, but he still had to kind of lie down sideways against the tree, pointing the light machinegun around the side of the trunk. It wasn’t comfortable, but at least he had the tree between the farm and most of his vitals.

  His breath still smoking as the morning light got brighter, uncomfortably conscious of the snow melting under his body and soaking into his bedsheet poncho and his clothes, he set in to wait and watch, ready to unleash hell if things really went sideways.

  ***

  Brannigan halted as Childress froze behind a tree. He didn’t need to ask what had made the point man stop. The headlights shining through the trees in the pre-dawn twilight said all that needed to be said.

  Slowly and carefully lowering himself to the ground, he watched over the sights of his AKM as three BRDMs, two big ZIL trucks, and four more UAZ “jeeps” rolled past. Even in the gray gloom, he could clearly see that the backs of the trucks were full of soldiers and the turrets were manned. He couldn’t see insignia, but he was pretty sure these were mostly Transnistrians. And they were loaded for bear.

  He bit off a curse. It wasn’t going to do any good. This was almost certainly mission failure. If the Transnistrians stormed the farm and took down the Western mercs, or terrorists, or whatever they were, they’d either kill or capture Codreanu, and then getting him out would be next to impossible.

  But there was nothing he could do. They didn’t have anti-armor weapons that could crack those BRDMs, and even if they did, the odds were just too long. They’d probably put a good dent in the enemy, but they’d all be dead by the time it was over.