by Mark Greaney
And the noise increased by the minute.
Connolly stepped out of the tent now and looked toward the bottom of the hill. He could see mortars impacting and pillars of black smoke rising from burning fuel, indicating destroyed armor.
Tracer rounds burst from the Marines’ lines in reds, ambers, and yellows. The incoming fire came in the form of green tracers. Russian weapons sprayed at first from twenty or thirty points in the distance, then forty or fifty. In less than ten minutes, the exchange of deadly fire on Darkhorse’s frontage turned into a constant, violent fireworks display of horror.
Dan Connolly watched, one hand pressed against his ear to lessen the noise, the other firmly against the radio, listening for the calls for fire from the line companies.
New reporting came in that Russian soldiers had made it to the edge of the Marine barbed-wire-and-obstacles perimeter.
Soon Connolly could make out the blasts from claymore mines detonating within the cacophony.
He looked over at Darkhorse Six; Ben Dickenson was desperately talking to his line commanders through the radio, ordering them to hold. He moved a few platoons around to plug gaps in the lines created by the slackening of outgoing fires resulting from the Russian vehicles’ pounding the Marines’ positions.
Connolly briefly considered calling Colonel Caster but decided instead to up the ante and begin forcing fire support to those areas that needed it most but might be too busy to request it. He conferred with his cell and they all called back to the regiment, using the terms they knew would garner all the support they could get.
The air officer called the 9-line requests over the UHF radio. In moments he was told he’d get two passes from the Harriers and one pass from the F/A-18s.
It wouldn’t be nearly enough, but it was a start.
The mortar leader directed the 81mm mortars to fire at coordinates to the north, everywhere a thinning in the American lines had been reported.
Darkhorse Six yelled over to Connolly now. “India Company has Russians in the wire! What can you give me right now, Dan?”
“Get me a grid and I’ll get the battery to fire an immediate suppression mission.”
The commander passed on the coordinates, then went back to his radio to reassure India Company’s captain they were about to get close artillery.
“Patriot, Patriot, this is Darkhorse fires,” the artillery officer called into his mic next. “Fire mission. Immediate suppression. All guns fire. Danger close. I say again, danger close!”
Seconds later, the speakers crackled. A voice said, “Station calling. This is Patriot. Need authentication. Over.”
“Damn it,” muttered Connolly. Without higher authority, the artillerymen would not fire and risk hitting friendly troops.
The voice of Colonel Caster, back in the mine shaft higher on the hill, boomed over the regimental command net. “Dan, you have my authorization if you think it’s worth the risk.”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
Connolly picked up the radio from the artillery liaison. “Patriot, initials Bravo Charlie.”
“Patriot copies. On Grizzly Six approval, stand by for danger-close mission.”
“Acknowledged. Sending target location,” replied Connolly as the artillery officer relayed the grid.
From the sounds of things over the battalion radio sets, Russian soldiers were less than three hundred meters away from where Connolly now stood. He could easily make out the rapid snap-snap of rifle fire in the cacophony of jolting noise. The entire line of Marine infantrymen engaged with all the arms in their arsenal in a fierce battle to keep the Russians off the hill.
As a battery of outbound artillery shells shrieked overhead, a small cheer went up in the tent. They didn’t fire for long, but Connolly hoped it would have a pulverizing effect on the Russian attackers.
And then, when the shooting slackened for a moment, the sounds of drones outside the tent could be heard. First one, then another and another. They seemed to be buzzing right overhead.
Lazar had zeroed in on the Darkhorse command post.
“Everybody out! Everybody out!” screamed Connolly.
He helped the fireteam grab their radios, and in seconds Marines were racing out through the tent flaps, trying to get far enough away from the command position before the inevitable.
Connolly and his crew dove into slit trenches dug for just this contingency under thick trees fifty meters away. Seconds later a 152mm artillery round slammed into the hillside, just seventy meters short of the HQ. Men fell to their knees; shrapnel whistled through the air. The second and third rounds all fell less than twenty meters from the tent; then a fourth hit just ten meters from the timber wall on the northern side of the tent. Connolly heard the screams from the men who had not made it to the trenches before shrapnel ripped through them.
Connolly watched three more rounds land in rapid succession. Four Marines caught out in the open vanished in the fire and flame. There was nothing he could do for them—nothing anyone could do.
“Sir!” yelled the mortar team leader over the noise. “The counter-battery system is picking up the data on those incoming rounds!”
“You’re kidding me. They’re still up and working?”
“Yes, sir, they called it in. Here’s the grid.” He handed Connolly a torn slip of paper with the grid on it.
More incoming as four heavy artillery shells blasted the now-vacated battalion command post to shreds. Tables, tarps, and radio equipment launched through the air, adding to the shrapnel. Farther down the slit trench, Connolly could see Darkhorse Six surrounded by Marines. He was the epitome of the fearless Marine Corps commander, standing in the trench, trying to see everything for himself, a radio held to his ear. The clerks and radio operators around him all had their rifles at the ready, scanning the trees down the hill to the north.
Connolly grabbed the regimental fires coordination cell radio from the artillery liaison. “Grizzly Fires, Grizzly Fires, this is Darkhorse Fires. How copy?”
* * *
• • •
Higher on the hill, shells and missiles rained down around Colonel Caster’s regimental command post. The horrific screaming wail of the multiple-launch rocket systems, one of the Russians’ favorite shock weapons ever since they were called “Stalin’s Organs” during World War II, pummeled an area the size of several football fields at the top of Mrima Hill, and the shaft where Caster and his men were hunkered down shook violently with each impact. The concussions entered the tunnel, making work and even clear thought challenging. Dust fell in cascades with each impact.
The barrage slackened for a moment, and more than fifty men from the regimental logistics section stumbled in from the outside, seeking shelter. Wounded and dead were carried in as well. The mine was now cramped, filled with sweating, stinking, and bleeding men.
The Russian artillery resumed in earnest, raining death outside.
Caster knew his northern line was failing; the enemy had his HQ pinpointed, and there were a hell of a lot more of them than there were of his Marines.
This could well be over in a couple of hours, he caught himself thinking, but he shook the thought away and began shouting out new orders.
CHAPTER 76
INDIAN OCEAN
1 JANUARY
Only twenty-one miles off the coast of Mombasa, Kenya, a small black shaft of metal, little more than a wire, broke the surface of the sea. It was the antenna of a Raytheon HDR (high data rate) multiband-satellite communications system, and it was mounted to the mast of the American Virginia-class submarine that lurked just below the waves.
The USS John Warner.
Commander Diana DelVecchio stood at the helm, eyes on the communications officer as she broadcast a digital transmission that would fire up to the Milstar satellite network and inform Fleet Operations of the submarine’s current location and d
isposition.
It was this disposition that DelVecchio and the others on board were concerned about now.
After telling herself days earlier she had no chance of slipping through the Iranian and Russian ships and subs that would be arrayed in a picket line in the waters off Mombasa, searching for her specific acoustic signature, she’d set about finding some sort of patrol area far out to sea where she could both protect her crew and at least have some chance to affect events on the ground at Mrima Hill. But as the John Warner moved toward its patrol area, DelVecchio’s confidence grew. A particularly wily Russian sub that they had just barely escaped days earlier up north had sprinted down into the area to wait for their arrival, but the John Warner’s radar operators found her when she surfaced, presumably to send and receive messages, and the American boat slipped around her undetected.
And it was at this point DelVecchio told herself to go for it. If she moved slowly, took care to stay in the right thermocline to make it harder to be detected by sonar, and had her own sonar team working tirelessly to find and fix all threats, then maybe, just maybe, she could get her boat somewhere closer to the action, where they would be exponentially more useful.
So she did just that, and for thirty-one hours all hands on the John Warner worked virtually without rest or breaks. Now they found themselves just twelve nautical miles south of an Iranian frigate with antisub rockets and depth charges, and nine nautical miles northwest of a Russian frigate with even more counter-submarine abilities. Also, there were other subs in the water; the John Warner had detected them intermittently, although right now she had no idea where the hell they all were.
The John Warner was in position to launch a single salvo of cruise missiles if the Marines needed them, but they’d have to be sent to targets that would be in the exact same location for sixteen minutes, the flight time from the John Warner’s current position to the Mrima Hill area.
Plus, after firing this single salvo, the John Warner would have to somehow slip the noose yet again and find a way out to sea as the enemy all around closed in.
DelVecchio and her XO had been working the charts for most of the past thirty-one hours, and they thought they’d found their escape route. A trench that would help mask them zigzagged to the southeast; they would have to dive into it and race through it, relying on nothing more than their nautical charts to tell them when to turn to port and starboard to avoid colliding with the trench walls.
But if they could do this, DelVecchio felt good about her chances.
Now it was all up to the U.S. Marines to give her targets and to make this entire endeavor worthwhile.
* * *
• • •
Eight minutes after sending the transmission, the SATCOM monitors broadcast a reply. The Marines were in desperate straits at Mrima Hill. The battle had been raging for half a day, and some Russian units were inside the lines. Fleet had sent word to the Boxer, and the LHD was in the process of setting up radio communication between the John Warner and the Regimental HQ on the top of Mrima Hill so that there would be less delay in comms between the customer of the weapons and the supplier of the weapons.
DelVecchio nodded slowly as she read the transmission.
To the bridge she said, “All this wasn’t for nothing. Our forces need help, and we’re only going to get one shot at this.” She added, “And then we’re going to run like hell.”
* * *
• • •
MRIMA HILL, KENYA
1 JANUARY
Connolly looked over the lip of the trench to the north and saw fire and smoke and explosions, dead lying on open ground between his position and the wood line, and mangled wreckage of Marine Corps vehicles, and it occurred to him that he’d never seen combat like this in his life. But he was not alone. None of the Marines had.
Nor had the Russians, for that matter.
One of the radiomen turned to the lieutenant colonel. “We’re going to get overrun with the next wave down here, sir, and the regimental command post is under threat of complete destruction behind us. That arty is too intense for us to fight; all we can do is hunker down and wait for the BTRs to come up the hill and kill us in our trenches.”
Dan Connolly had to admit that this twenty-two-year-old Marine had as accurate a take on this battle as any working group at the Pentagon ever would.
He kept looking over the top of the slit trench, his eyes just barely high enough to see the continuing explosions at the front of India Company. There had been reports that the Russians had broken through in platoon-sized elements, but the last series of strikes from the F/A-18s took out six or seven BTRs, with the loss of one of the aircraft.
He was about to task the last two Cobras when a call came from a battalion radio operator. An unknown number of Russian BTRs had indeed made it inside the defensive lines, and they were now marauding in the rear.
Damn it, he thought. They’ve broken through.
He looked over the air officer’s attack data and thumped him on the helmet, giving him the approval for the Cobra run. Then he looked down the line in the direction of the battalion commander. Everyone in the trench was low to the ground, and one of them yelled and pointed to the north. Connolly turned his head to see three figures coming from his right. They were Russian infantrymen racing through the trees, obviously dismounts from a BTR.
A grenade bounced along the dirt and rolled across the front of Connolly’s trench.
“Watch it, sir!” Casillas stood up on the top of his LAV just behind the trench and cut loose with the M240 machine gun. He laid into the trigger, spraying rounds into the approaching Russian soldiers.
Connolly dropped down now, falling on top of the rest of the fires team.
The grenade made a deafening crack less than a dozen feet from the lip of the trench. He heard the shrapnel beating the dirt above his head like steel rain.
The men in the slit trench next to Connolly popped up, firing their rifles as yet another group of Russians appeared soon after. Casillas fired from atop the LAV, and the enemy scrambled for cover.
A BTR burst from the shattered trees at the northeastern side of the clearing, and raced into the open, veering between the wrecked hulks of LAVs and other vehicles. It fired wildly into what remained of the battalion headquarters, destroying vehicles, generators, aid station tents, and the seven-ton trucks parked in the wood line behind Connolly’s position. The Russian APC’s cannon peppered the area, sweeping a wide arc left, then right, shooting at anything in sight.
Connolly heard the agonized cries of men caught up in the blasts.
His group ducked down into the trench again to avoid the incoming 30mm fire as it passed close, and then Marines left and right popped up to fire with their rifles. It forced the Russian soldiers to duck down but it could not penetrate the BTR; its armor was too thick, even for Casillas’s heavy weaponry.
The Russian machine advanced slowly with soldiers crouched behind it, using it as a shield and firing to their flanks.
Connolly hefted his carbine, thumbed off the safety, and rose above the trench line. He only managed to squeeze off a few rounds in anger at the BTR fifty meters away before his position was raked by 7.62mm fire.
Dropping back below the lip of the trench, he looked behind him. There was nowhere to go. If he and his team jumped out, the BTR would cut them in half. If they stayed, eventually the soldiers closing in on them would take the trench.
They were completely pinned.
Without warning, an incredible screaming sound shot right over him. He heard an explosion just to the north, and then heat and flame shot over the top of the trench.
The incoming fire stopped immediately.
Connolly poked his head up and saw the BTR, a gaping hole in its side, smoke pouring out of its top. The Russians behind it were either dead, wounded, or scrambling for cover back down the hill.
&nb
sp; “Get some!” came a shout from behind, and Connolly turned to see Sergeant Casillas off his LAV, on his knees in the dirt with an empty AT-4 rocket tube in his hands.
He tossed it aside and started to climb back aboard his LAV. His uniform was shredded at his right thigh and completely coated in shiny, slick blood.
Men cheered and poured fire into the surviving Russian dismounts.
Connolly yelled for the two nearest men from his fires team to race out to grab the Marine sergeant. Casillas had made it halfway back to the top of his LAV and was trying to man his machine gun in case of further attack. They reached him quickly and coaxed him back down despite his protests, and corpsmen were called over to carry him to the makeshift medical station in another slit trench in the clearing.
Connolly worked on getting the aircraft back on his radio for confirmation and another run, then shook his head in amazement. Only a Marine sergeant would get shot, then try to climb back to his post to continue his duty.
The radioman next to Connolly had wicked cuts to his face, and blood was smeared around it like war paint, but he was still doing his job.
“Call from the Boxer, sir!”
Connolly couldn’t imagine what the hell the Boxer would have to tell him that would do him any good right now. “Unless they came across an extra squadron of F/A-18s down in their hold, I don’t have time to talk with the damn ship.”
The radioman handed Connolly the hook, too overwhelmed by events to laugh at the joke. “They said it’s urgent, sir.”
Connolly brought the hook to his ear with annoyance. “Grizzly Five, fired. Over.”
The voice on the other end said, “John Warner is in range and on station and offering to help. They have cruise missiles but a very short window before they’ll have to turn and run once they expose themselves. Flight time to estimated Russian positions is sixteen minutes, but they’ll need coordinates from you. Not sure how effective they’ll be, seeing how we don’t have the Russian forces locked into one area.”