by Mark Greaney
* * *
• • •
CENTRAL KENYA
29 DECEMBER
Connolly’s force had been racing south, but they stopped to refuel on the highway, and the commanders took advantage of the break to check in with the Boxer. Connolly moved through the throngs of vehicles and men on the road surrounded by vast, open desert, searching for Lieutenant Colonel Eric McHale.
Dan Connolly had known the regimental operations officer for twenty years. They had been together at Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and even graduated in the same Infantry Officer course, but as was usually the case in the service, they hadn’t had much time to get together in the intervening years. Career and family got in the way, usually in that order, and though the Corps was the smallest of the four U.S. military services, the two men had lost touch until now.
He worried McHale might be thinking he was trying to steal his job. Connolly was “Nick the New Guy” with this unit, and as such it was assumed he would keep his mouth shut. But Connolly was also here on a pressing mission, so it was crucial to him that he establish an amicable relationship with McHale from the start.
“Hey, man, hope I’m not getting in your way,” said Connolly as the two men busied themselves putting up a long-range antenna.
“Hell no, brother,” said McHale. “You’re value added. Having a direct dial to the top and a shot at this mission is more than we could have asked for. If you hadn’t pieced together all this crap, we’d be cutting Gator Squares up in the Gulf.” “Gator Squares” meant Marines on a ship at sea, sailing endlessly in a tight patrol sector and awaiting action.
Every Marine’s worst nightmare.
Connolly said, “Any way I can help, I’m here for you.”
Sergeant Casillas called out from the back of the LAV now. “Lieutenant Colonel Connolly, sir? There’s a French officer on the radio for you. Says it’s an emergency.”
“French officer?” Connolly looked at the colonel, who shrugged. “Okay, put him through to my station.”
Caster and McHale came over to listen in as Connolly got up in a seat next to the radios.
Casillas hit a switch on the communications board in the LAV-C2. “Okay, sir, toss on a crew helmet, flip the switch, and you’re all set.”
“Do we have a call sign for this guy?”
“He said it was Apollo, sir. Could be a unit call sign. Dunno.”
Connolly put on the helmet as instructed, then flipped the switch. “Call sign Apollo, call sign Apollo. This is Marine Task Force Grizzly—do you receive me?”
McHale climbed in through the back hatch of the cramped vehicle and sat next to Connolly. He plugged in one of the speakers so everyone could hear the radio broadcast.
“Allo, Marines. This is French special forces captain Apollo Arc-Blanchette. We have made contact with a sizable Russian force. Do you copy?”
“Good copy, Captain.”
“Bon. My government has told me to get in touch with a man named Colonel Daniel Connolly. We have taken some casualties and request assistance. We wish to collapse into your perimeter. Can you comply?”
“Sounds like his name is Apollo,” said Connolly. McHale nodded and pulled out a notebook.
“Roger, Apollo. I receive you loud and clear. Can you give us a grid location for your casualties?” Connolly glanced at McHale, who nodded his approval. All NATO services treated one another’s casualties as if they were their own.
Apollo called in his current location, a spot just southwest of Moyale, on the Kenyan-Ethiopian border. Connolly acknowledged and said he’d get right back to him and to stay close to his radio.
“What do you think, sir?”
McHale said, “Find out how many men he’s got and we’ll spin up and go get them. We’ll have helos from the Boxer brought up.” The regimental operations officer added, “Dan, you want to lead the group to fly in? You can get intel from him on the way back. I’ve got to keep us pushing south.”
“Absolutely,” Connolly replied, and he brought the radio back to his mouth.
* * *
• • •
CENTRAL POLAND
29 DECEMBER
Captain Raymond “Shank” Vance climbed out of the truck and stumbled into a snowbank along the road, accidentally reaching out with his bad arm to arrest his fall. He was rewarded with a jolt of pain in his hand even though he landed in nothing firmer than wet snow. He was helped back to his feet by a young militia member.
The younger man brushed the snow off Shank’s coat.
“What was it like?”
“What was what like?” Shank asked.
“Getting shot down.”
Shank had been trying not to think about it all, although it came back to him every few minutes. He said, “It sucked.”
Paulina appeared in front of him with a radio in her hand. She used it to point to a faraway rolling pasture, a vista at least a mile distant and a mile wide.
She said, “Russians will be here in three hours. Only way east to stay out of city to north and not cross river to south.” Then she added, “You get planes.”
Shank shook his head. “We need to know what frequency the aircraft are operating on. I need to know what the AT is for the day and what sortie we’re on. I mean, if there are even any A-10s up.”
“No planes?” A look of disappointment crossed her otherwise emotionless face.
He sighed. “We’ll figure something out. I kind of thought you had some resources, or were dialed into the NATO AT cycle, or something.”
“What you need?” she asked, a tone of frustration in her voice. He realized she and her group of about forty militia were effectively working alone.
Well, he asked himself, what did I expect? A well-coordinated ground unit?
This was the fucking civilian militia.
“If I had a NATO or U.S. UHF radio, maybe I could raise someone on the guard net.”
Paulina turned away and walked off to one of the other vehicles. She returned a moment later and handed a wooden-stocked AK-47 to the American pilot.
Shank took it and slung it over his back. He’d fired an AK only once before, when he was goofing off in Afghanistan, and had no real training on the weapon.
“Okay, radio is coming. We make a camp here.”
Shank followed her into the woods and immediately saw why the Poles had picked this site. They were actually on an escarpment that looked over a broad and open vista. But this prominence was the only one, which told Shank that if they were going to ambush the Russians from here, the Russians would put together very quickly what piece of ground the militia was using to overwatch their movements.
He thought for a moment about suggesting they move to a lesser hill, but he didn’t see any other options. Besides, the immediate concerns were to get a radio and try to dial up someone—anyone—who might be scouting above.
Shank followed Paulina up to a position they had prepared out of a tangle of cut brush and some packed snow. There were already three Polish militia members there with a DShK, or Dushka, heavy machine gun. The barrel poked out from the brush, but otherwise it was well disguised.
The fluent English speaker who called himself Jahdek stepped up to him and handed him two different handheld radios. One was completely wrong for his needs. It looked Russian, but as Shank examined the dials, he could see from the numbers it was in the VHF range. Handy to have, but likely no one would be monitoring those nets unless instructed to do so.
The other radio was a NATO UHF. It looked like an Italian brand, but it certainly had the markings he was looking for.
“You can use?” Paulina asked.
“Yes, I think so. I doubt this thing has its encryption still encoded, but maybe I can try it.”
“What you need?” she said.
He fiddled with the dial and the kno
bs, and the radio came to life with the sound of static.
Jahdek stepped up to the American. “The Polish Rifles—they are another militia group. They are thirty kilometers to our west. They stopped responding on the radio. We don’t know, but maybe they were overrun by the Russians who are coming this way.”
“Shit,” Shank said, but he kept trying different radio frequencies.
“Paulina wants to set an ambush. She wants your planes to attack.”
Shank said, “I get it. I think the radio is ready, but there’s really no way to test it.”
Now Jahdek said, “She will do the ambush even if there are no planes.”
“With what? That Dushka? That’s not enough. Even for just a Russian reconnaissance unit. Their infantry carriers have heavy armor. They’ll kill you all in minutes.”
“We have more than just that Dushka.”
Paulina stepped up to the two men and pointed at the truck. “Does radio work, Mr. Shank?”
“Once we see or hear any aircraft, I will give it a try.”
“It work?” she said, not fully comprehending.
“We’ll see.”
It had to work, Shank thought to himself. This was his job. His duty. Even if he wasn’t in the cockpit himself, he could still do his part to put ordnance on targets.
CHAPTER 65
ETHIOPIAN-KENYAN BORDER
29 DECEMBER
The crew chief leaned out the side hatch and called out distances to trees and the ground. The big, fat CH-53 shook as the pilot slowly eased the collective to control the helicopter’s rate of descent.
With a gentle bump the helo landed.
Connolly shouldered his M4 carbine, closed the Velcro on his heavy Kevlar body armor, and jogged off the back ramp where the rotor wash from all four aircraft flung dust and debris, causing a miniature sandstorm. It was hard to see through the haze of dirt and the darkness, but he could just make out four men running toward him. Connolly then watched as the equivalent of a reinforced platoon, about sixty soldiers in all, entered the landing zone from the wood line. No words or other sounds were audible above the din of the four giant helos, so the crew chiefs on each aircraft motioned for the wounded and dead to be carried onto one bird, and the able-bodied men to board the others.
The Frenchmen complied, carrying fallen Dragoons both on stretchers and in body bags up into one of the CH-53s. When the casualties had been delivered to the Navy corpsmen waiting there for them, the French troops all boarded the other helos.
Connolly walked between the CH-53s now, asking around for the French captain he had spoken with. He tried to call above the deafening rotor wash into the back of each helicopter. “Apollo?”
Several men pointed him to a big man already sitting in the last helo.
Connolly climbed aboard and beckoned the captain back to the other CH-53. There they both donned headsets, the rubber ear caps muffling the loud rotors and engines above.
Shaking hands finally, the American said, “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Dan Connolly.”
“Captain Apollo Arc-Blanchette. Thirteenth Dragoons. We are very happy to see you, sir.”
“How are your men?” The helo began to shudder as the pilot changed the pitch of the blades and added power.
“Eight wounded. Three KIA, unfortunately. We hit them just south of Yabelo, caused some damage, but they were quick to counterattack in force. You will take my casualties to your ship?”
The crew chief signaled for the two to fasten their safety harnesses, then went back to instruct the Frenchmen who were still strapping in, struggling to fit themselves and their big rucksacks in the relatively small space.
“Yes. We have full surgery aboard the USS Boxer and your men will be taken care of. The rest of you will fly back with me. Our forces are moving up from Tanzania to the mine, but we have a battalion-minus of light-armored vehicles just south of here. We’re going to hit them as they leave Moyale.”
The crew chief shut the side hatch; the pitch of the rotors turned louder, and the wide helicopter lifted into the air.
Apollo said, “Good. We faced the Russians three times now. They are formidable. The first hit was a small Spetsnaz force. No problem. The second was an ambush we set up against forward reconnaissance. We destroyed them but used all our explosives. Then we hit them at the border.”
Connolly patted Apollo on the arm. “I think your information on the Russian task force is going to be valuable. Would you mind briefing our intelligence guys and the senior leaders once we get back to our forces?”
“I’ll brief anything so long as we get after these bastards when I’m done.” The Frenchman sighed. He said, “I was fighting them the other day in Germany, and now we’re fighting down here.”
Connolly stared in surprise. “Wait. You were in combat in Germany?”
“Oui. At the beginning of it all. The Russian Spetsnaz placed a laser navigation device on the tallest mountain in Germany, but we discovered it and wiped them out. Lost two men in the process, though. We had several more wounded hours later in Czechia. Again we were fighting Spetsnaz.”
Connolly was amazed. Reports from Europe were still so spotty, he knew nothing about either of these engagements.
“You obviously have a lot of intel about how the Russian special forces are operating, in both Europe and Africa. We’re a little thin on the actions of the rest of the brigade heading south.”
The Frenchman looked at the American for a long time.
Connolly picked up on the man’s reticence to say more. “What is it?”
Finally Apollo spoke. “My father. He’s a . . . a diplomat stationed in Djibouti. He stayed behind to record every piece of armor and every troop he could see as the columns left the capital.”
Connolly presumed this meant Apollo’s dad was a spy, but he had the good manners not to mention it. “We received that intel. That was damn good work by your dad. Hope you’ll tell him the U.S.A. appreciates him.”
“I’d love to do that, Colonel, but I haven’t been able to reach him. I’m a little worried.”
“Yeah . . . I can understand why.” Connolly put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder again. “The quicker we end this thing, the better for your dad.”
“Oui, bien sûr.” He changed the subject. “To that end, what is your strength?”
“A regiment, roughly. With some air assets.”
Apollo blinked in surprise. “The Russians have a lot more than that, just in their column. When are you being reinforced?”
“That’s kind of the problem. We’re it for now. A carrier battle group is on the way, and it will bring in a lot more air, but they won’t get here till well after the Russians arrive at the mines. If Russia takes the territory, we won’t be able to dislodge them without laying waste to the whole thing.”
“It’s a mine. You could bomb it and then just dig the rock out of the rubble, no?”
Connolly said, “The Russians have to know that, so I think they have a way to protect the mine once they take it. We need to prevent them doing so.”
Apollo nodded. “Most in my command still believe the real show is Europe.”
“Well, Apollo, for you and me, this fight down here is the only fight that matters right now, and even though the numbers are against us, we’re going to fucking win it.”
“D’accord.”
* * *
• • •
SOUTHERN POLAND
29 DECEMBER
Jahdek had brought Shank some pain pills, but the Pole couldn’t tell him what they were other than prescription meds the forty-five-year-old had for his bad back.
Shank took them anyway. His broken hand throbbed like hell, and his facial wounds hurt like he was constantly being stung by bees around his left eye. He figured he wouldn’t be able to make it through the evening with his wits intact w
ithout something to take away at least a quarter of the agony.
The two men sat on the hood of a truck. The cold air outside the vehicle helped Shank with his pain, and Jahdek didn’t seem to mind, which Shank assumed came from a lifetime of harsh winters like this.
Shank said, “I’m not going to pretend to be much of a historian, but you guys have had to deal with a lot of assholes from other places marching around your nation.”
“Truly,” Jahdek said. “Before we gained our freedom, we were slaves to the Soviets. Before them, the Nazis, of course. And the Russians again before that. We experienced more than a hundred years of slavery to other nations. Nations who used us, used the people, and erased our history to exaggerate their own. So now we fight.”
Shank raised his right hand and high-fived the man sitting next to him. “And I’m right here with you, brother.”
Shank looked up to the sky suddenly, and Jahdek saw this and followed his eyes. After a few seconds both men could make out the sounds of jets somewhere off to the west but hidden above the low cloud cover.
Another man came running over now.
“Mr. Shank, we hear a plane!” he yelled, out of breath.
All three men moved over to the radio, which was positioned behind logs and sandbags a few meters back from the edge of the wood line.
Shank trained his students to memorize the guard frequency for just such an emergency. He could think of only two frequencies now, but he wasn’t certain about either of them, perhaps due to the effects of the pills Jahdek had given him.
He dialed in the first radio net ID he remembered. “Any station this net, any station this net, this is call sign Shank on guard net ID three-four-eight decimal four-five-zero.”
He felt rather than saw Paulina appear on his left side by the truck. He looked up at her as he tried again. “Any station, any station. Shank on guard net. Do you receive me?” There was some static on the line now, which was encouraging, because it indicated someone might be broadcasting, but he heard no voices.