by Mark Greaney
Four rockets found their marks, catching the Russians by complete surprise.
Three of the BTRs were destroyed, and a heavily laden troop transport erupted in a ball of fire. Bodies were tossed like rag dolls into the air along with the flying wreckage.
Without pause, another six rockets were launched, with two BTRs taking hits. A white jet of molten fire poured into the closed vehicles, literally cooking the men inside alive. Secondary explosions only made the situation worse for those who had already dismounted vehicles in the staging area.
Now the Marine and Dragoon machine gunners began firing at dozens of troops in the open. Everyone with a rifle followed suit.
Another row of vehicles appeared on the road from the north—nearly a company of APCs—and these Russians immediately saw that their staging area was taking accurate fire from the high grasses to the east. Weapons in the APCs swung in that direction as the convoy bumped off the dirt track and began approaching.
A gun battle raged, and another pair of French AT-4s rocketed across the field and slammed into an APC, but more armor appeared out of the north in the predawn.
The incoming fire was withering, and Apollo was forced to bury his face in the dirt as rounds bit into the ground around him, blasting chunks of earth and tufts of grass into the air.
Apollo looked up and down the French and Marine line. All the men were similarly pinned; only a few were firing rifles and machine guns now as they tried to weather the heavy guns of the APCs and the increasingly accurate rifle fire from the dismounts near the dirt road.
Merde! Apollo thought. So this is how we will die.
When he heard more vehicles approaching his position, he took grim satisfaction, even without being able to look up, that the Russians had peeled off another group of APCs to come and rout out Apollo and his men. By now it seemed a full company had halted their advance to focus on the ambush.
In the distance he heard the Darkhorse artillery pulverizing the other five staging areas.
Oui, we will all die in this African dirt, he thought to himself, but the plan was working.
Apollo chanced a glance above the grass and behind him, looking for any escape for him and his men, but the terrain was flat in all directions. There was nowhere to go but down. Again he buried his helmet in the dirt.
The chirps, whizzes, and pings of incoming bullets made the air alive like a hornet’s nest.
Apollo felt intense heat behind him. He looked back; the grass had caught fire from the Russian onslaught.
The Marine radioman defied death to inch over to Apollo. “Sir! Sir! I have the Grizzly fires officer on the net. Colonel Connolly says for us to keep our heads down.”
“I don’t think we can get much lower, Private.”
“He said, ‘Danger close,’ and it’s corporal, sir.”
Jesus, thought Apollo, only a U.S. Marine would quibble over his rank in the face of certain death. But it was a short-lived thought, because an AT-4 took out another APC just one hundred meters away, and this caused the line of armor to pour more fire on the ambush line.
Someone to his left shouted, “Dismounts approaching!”
Apollo looked in the direction of a pointed finger and he saw a platoon of men assaulting forward through the grass, almost even with the Russian APCs. He knew if he didn’t elimate these troops, he’d have enemy in his ambush line in under a minute.
Just after another AT-4 raced toward the Russians on his right, slamming into the tires of one of the APCs and causing a mobility kill, a loud screech came from the sky behind him.
Apollo understood what it was immediately.
“Fast movers,” he said out loud.
Sergeant Cruz’s shout from fifty yards away could be heard by Apollo a second later. “Motherfucking fast goddamned movers!”
The Russians didn’t have any aircraft. The screeching of racing jet engines sounded like angels from heaven to Apollo.
The rest of the men seemed to realize the same thing, and a muffled yell erupted from the pinned-down defensive line.
A last hope, Apollo thought. But we have to eliminate those dismounts before they get into the line.
He looked over his shoulder and saw a Marine F-35 bearing down on them at an exceedingly deep dive angle, its underbelly alight from its four-barreled 25mm GAU-12 Equalizer cannon. Apollo watched the steady stream of tracer fire lancing over his position, then turned as it blasted into the Russians less than one hundred meters away.
The earth shook.
Enemy vehicles began to scatter across the field, and more BTRs approaching on the dirt road heading south left the track to distance themselves from the other vehicles, hoping to make a small and less enticing target for the American aircraft.
Two missiles blasted from the wings of the F-35 and streaked groundward, quickly followed by a pair of GBU-39 bombs. Apollo spun away, slamming his face down into the shallow trench shielding his view, but two quick thunderclaps told him the Marine pilot had hit his mark. The bombs landed only a hundred meters in front of Apollo—close enough that shrapnel fell through the air around the trench, peppering the lines with falling fragments.
A second jet, wingman to the first, followed just seconds behind with both guns and bombs. Apollo heard more thunderstrikes as targets were hit; then he lifted his head above the grass to see the black columns of smoke and showers of sparks from the secondary detonations.
Apollo’s hope rose. But it was too soon.
A third aircraft was not as lucky.
The Russians rapidly attuned themselves to the new threat. Across the battlefield, eight or ten Russian ZSU radars locked, and their heavy-barreled, rapid-fire machine guns opened up.
The ZSUs had been mixed into the advance columns in true Russian fashion for just this very reason.
Apollo could only watch what happened next.
Streams of tracer bullets played across the sky like fire hoses, each spraying wide at first, but then they converged nearly simultaneously as the heavy antiaircraft guns found their range and accuracy.
The third diving Marine F-35 pilot tried to pull wide, recognizing the trap he’d entered, but it was too late. Heavy rounds slammed into his fuselage.
A wing tore free.
The aircraft entered a hellacious corkscrew and continued uncontrollably on its original trajectory, spinning faster and faster as it tumbled earthward. Flames spewed out of the torn wing like a red spiraling comet.
There was no time. No parachute pop. No way for the pilot to escape his fate.
The aircraft disappeared over the jungle to the east, and a roiling ball of yellow-orange fire rose into the morning sky.
All the APCs that had been advancing one minute earlier were now either destroyed, damaged and immobile, or racing back toward the dirt road.
But in all the smoke and fire in the area ahead, Apollo continued to worry about the dismounts he’d seen. He assumed they were now hidden down in the grass, or perhaps they found some gully he hadn’t detected. He didn’t believe it possible that they all had been killed by the F-35s.
He called over his radio, ordering his men to hurl grenades.
But just as he did so, he heard AK fire just forward of his position, and more of it to his south.
“Enemy in the lines!” he shouted into his mic, just as a Russian appeared in the firelight, a rifle at his shoulder. Apollo swung his carbine up and shot him a half dozen times, knocking him back into the grass. As the man fell Apollo had the presence of mind to realize the soldier was wearing the uniform of a Russian paratrooper.
More Russians appeared through the burning grasses. A few leapt down into the tiny trench, and gunfights broke out at contact distance. Apollo spun to aim at a big paratrooper twenty meters to his right, but he couldn’t get a bead on him because Dragoons and Marines were in his line of fire.
Up and down the ambush line, medium machine guns, carbines, and rifles poured fire. He heard shouts and yelling all around, while above, the F-35s made another attack run on the APCs.
Apollo gave up on the enemy to his right, then spun back to his left just in time to see a Russian leap out of the smoldering grass and bayonet an American in the throat. Apollo raised his rifle to kill the attacker, but from the other direction gunfire ripped into the man and sent bullets whizzing past Apollo’s position.
The gunfight in the trench lasted only a minute before it devolved into hand-to-hand combat as the frantic Russian paratroopers tried desperately to get away from both the APCs taking fire from above and the burning grasses all around. They’d deemed their enemy lines to be the safest place for them, and it created utter pandemonium in the fight.
But Apollo battled through the terror of the moment, personally eliminating another paratrooper just as the man lined his weapon up on a Dragoon who was dealing with a closer threat. He shouted orders into his squad radio for the men to stay focused and keep their fire discipline intact, and in another minute there was no more AK fire in close.
Just like that, as quickly as it had begun, the Russian attack of the shallow trenches stalled. Even so, there were still troops near the road, still APCs functional but retreating, and certainly more enemy troops in the smoldering grassland.
Dariel leapt to his feet and began moving forward, firing first left, then right, swearing bloody murder as he advanced, bursts from his carbine targeting any Russian that moved. Men would stand up amid the burning grass to return fire, but Dariel pumped burst after burst into each of them mercilessly.
One by one, the French special forces and Marines rose out of the shallow trenches and began moving forward, following the brave sergent-chef.
Two Marine medium machine gunners held their guns at the hip, opening up and concentrating fire on a group of Russians who appeared from behind a wrecked BTR. Belts of ammo tore through their guns as they fought the recoil to walk slowly forward. One of the Marines dropped, felled by an AK blast, but the other kept moving.
After twenty meters Apollo yelled for the men to cease firing. The last of the Russians were in full retreat back to the road, diving behind wreckage there.
The men looked at him as if he were insane. We’re winning! they thought. But Apollo knew better. They were outgunned and outnumbered in enemy territory. They had the chance to withdraw, and Apollo knew getting as many of these men as possible back to the American lines alive was his mission now.
He gave the order to withdraw.
The men kept up a brisk fire and fell back. Hoisting the wounded and the dead up on their shoulders, they ran through the grass fires, a mass of destruction in their wake. A few shots rang out behind them, but the sounds of heavy explosions to the east and big plumes of smoke just visible in the growing light meant they had done their job. The Russians had been rocked by the preplanned American artillery strikes in the five staging areas. Additionally, the ambush here at the right flank had routed the enemy, and the only Russian paratroopers Apollo saw now through the haze of smoke in the morning were in vehicles racing back to the north, in full retreat.
Exhaustion hit the French captain like a mallet, but he shook it away and went to help some Marines struggling to run while carrying a man on a litter.
Apollo had won; he could feel it in his bones. But he also could feel the loss. He had no idea how many of his Dragoons were dead or wounded now. His father had been among the first Frenchmen to fall in this short but fierce Africa campaign, and he wondered if one of his brave men might end up being the last.
Just then, a voice came over the radio. It was Dariel. “Sir, Konstantine is dead.”
“Merde,” Apollo said softly as he took hold of a litter.
CHAPTER 81
NORTH OF MRIMA HILL, KENYA
2 JANUARY
Yuri Borbikov left the command tent and marched to the BTR logistics vehicle.
The special Spetsnaz force there greeted him. These men had guarded the vehicle all the way from Russia, through Azerbaijan, and Iran, and then to Africa, and they had been hand selected for this mission for two characteristics: their elite skills and their absolute, unwavering dedication to Borbikov.
The logistics vehicle was guarded by two other BTRs, also stacked with big, talented Spetsnaz soldiers, and this three-APC convoy had remained well to the rear of Lazar’s main force, safely behind any fighting.
“Are you ready?” Borbikov asked the sergeant atop the vehicle.
“We are ready, Comrade Colonel.”
“Good, let us drive to the reserve-artillery park.”
All three BTRs advanced with a big roar of their perfectly maintained engines.
Borbikov knew Lazar’s plan had failed. The armored forces at the front were nearly out of ammunition, the artillery was all but gone, and the paratroopers he’d sent forward had been slaughtered in their staging areas.
But Borbikov had one more card to play. He would not return to Russia in glory as he had hoped, but he would damn well make the West pay for the insult they’d caused him and his country by taking this mine away three years earlier.
America would pay one hell of a huge price for what had happened here, and while this would not translate into a victory for Russia’s military or economy, it would constitute a victory for Borbikov himself.
He would win today.
* * *
• • •
The small Russian reserve artillery park was well hidden in a jungle clearing next to a rocky, dusty road. All the weapons and vehicles were camouflaged from above, and the gun barrels themselves were hidden inside the foliage at the clearing’s edge.
The officer here had command of a battery of the huge 2A65 Msta-B 152mm artillery pieces. His six massive weapons had remained in reserve, and the men had been filled with jealousy as their brothers had consolidated and rumbled forward, taking almost all the ammunition with them.
But now all the other artillery forces were dead, their weapons destroyed, devastated by air attacks, and Tomahawk missiles apparently fired from a submarine off the coast.
The commander had assumed his unit would be ordered forward immediately, but the call never came.
For now he could only sit and wait and worry and hope that if he was tasked forward, the Americans would be out of fucking planes and fucking cruise missiles by the time he got there.
As the men stood there smoking and listening to the radios in the fire direction center, it was clear the latest attack was faltering as well. The Marines were holding their ground, or most of it anyway, and the bald-headed artillery commander did not understand why the fuck he wasn’t firing his shells up onto the hillside and blasting the rare-earth minerals out of that mine.
A pair of BTRs rolled up the gravel road from the south, parked next to the fire direction center, and Colonel Yuri Borbikov climbed out and began marching quickly up to the twenty men standing there in the overalls of artillery forces.
The dust- and sweat-covered artillery captain walked over and greeted Borbikov.
“Good morning, Colonel. Thank you for coming in to visit the ass end of the brigade.”
The colonel said, “You are no longer the ass end. How many rounds have you put through your guns so far?”
“Hundreds in Moyale and Mount Kenya, Comrade Colonel, but none here. We are ready to serve the attack.”
Borbikov looked the artillery commander over for a few moments; then he inspected his men. “Follow me,” he said to the captain, and then he walked to the rear of the logistics BTR-80.
Four Spetsnaz soldiers clad in the latest Russian body armor and carrying the new Kalashnikov AK-12 assault rifles stood guard at the back hatches. Borbikov signaled to the men and they pulled the metal doors open.
Three heavy steel crates were stacked one
on top of the other near the rear hatches, a canvas sheet partially covering them, making it impossible for the captain to read any writing on the cases themselves.
He recognized each box as being the size of a standard two-count crate of artillery ammunition; he’d seen enough of those in his career to know that much, although those crates were normally constructed of wood.
The captain looked up at the colonel in confusion. “They look like crates that would hold shells for the 152s. Thank you, sir, but we have plenty of ammo.”
Borbikov reached in and grabbed the canvas, then yanked it free of the BTR and tossed it behind him. “Go ahead—take a look.”
The artillery commander looked at the crates, and immediately saw the unmistakable symbol for radiological devices.
Borbikov himself opened the lid on the top case and the captain let out a soft gasp.
Inside were two nuclear-tipped artillery shells. He presumed there would be four more in the two crates below the top one.
“Sir?” the captain croaked out now, because he did not know what else to say.
“Today, Captain, you will make history. You will order a shell loaded into each weapon. Your coordinates are the center of the mine. Fire for effect on my command.”
“But . . . I am not trained on nuclear artillery. Don’t we have to . . . arm them or something? I have no idea how to—”
“The weapons have been armed and readied. Proceed.”
The artillery commander nodded, a dazed look on his face, and he began shouting orders to the young men in the crews behind him.
* * *
• • •
Five minutes later the breeches of the six weapons were loaded, and the crews were in position. The coordinates had been set on the artillery pieces, and the pattern of impacts was designed to hit the northern side of Mrima Hill at the very top, with a pair of nuclear devices to slam into the mine itself from above.