by Sean Wilson
There was more.
Fuel tankers came and went during the night, rumbling across the rough desert tracks in winding convoys, and it was obvious to DIA Intel that they were being used to transport processed heroin to a dozen distribution points across the north of the territory. There were plenty of false rumours that ISIS was selling oil at bargain prices to raise cash. That would explain the fuel transporters. True, the fuel trucks looked innocent enough but their cargo was the refined narcotic that fuelled ISIS’s efforts in Syria and Iraq. The precious merchandise was being used to fuel ISIS’s activities in the cities of Europe too. The fuel tankers had military escorts, concealed in convoys of civilian trucks. Attack helicopters flew along parallel pathways to make sure the convoys arrived safely at their destinations. Someone was taking a great deal of trouble to make sure the goods were hidden, that they were fully protected and that they arrived safely at their destinations and it was obvious that, whenever large amounts of hard cash were involved, the Russian military was never far away. What was hard to absorb was the sheer scale of the corruption and the depths of the cynicism. The heroin business was being used to line the pockets of politicians, crime lords, army staff and an entire network of Islamic fundamentalists. The money was being used to buy weapons and explosives. It would pay for suicide bombings and terrorist atrocities. It was being used to fund ISIS’s very existence and Washington understood that it had to take action. This was far more than trying to bring some kind of peace and order back a war-torn Syria. This was more than trying to contain the virulent plague that was Islamic fundamentalism. This was also about an aggressive and resurgent Russia and its cynical plans to exploit the conflict and extend its power and influence, whilst harvesting vast amounts of hard currency. It was time to counter this dangerous threat. It was time to act.
When it came to clandestine operations that could be disowned and denied by the US political and military elite, there was only one organisation that could be relied upon to deliver the goods without risking the outbreak of World War Three. Washington called the Defence Intelligence Agency. The DIA was tasked with cutting off the drug’s distribution network and destroying the processing plant. They had to shut down one of the most important sources of military funding for the extremists. They had to stem the tide of hard cash that was secretly funding large parts of the Russian government and its partners in crime. That meant the DIA was tasked with secretly inserting a heavily-armed assault team into northern Syria with the purpose of destroying a heavily-guarded Russian military base. Bombing was out of the question. Cruise missiles could start a war. No. This operation had to look as if it was the work of local militias, a factional strike against the supposed supporters of the government in Damascus. It was still a high risk mission and Washington understood that the assault team was unlikely to make it out alive. The mission’s importance warranted the risk and the possible sacrifice. Except no one mentioned those particular considerations to Mike Ducane when he was being briefed for the mission. But Mike didn’t need to be told. Mike was a very smart soldier. Mike was a very experienced special forces operative. He could work out the mission’s unexplained details just as easily from what was not being said. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the odds were heavily stacked against him and his team. So, without sharing his intentions with the DIA brass, he began working on a back-up plan. Just in case his team defied the odds and survived the mission to collect their bonuses.
Chapter 9
Base security at the DIA’s Syrian operational camp had been heavily scrutinised after the Russians had successfully planted a beautiful Syrian liaison officer in Mike Ducane’s willing arms. Whether she’d learned anything useful from Mike was still open to question. There were plenty of other places for her to pick up intel around the camp and she’d been a welcome and popular diversion for the base troops, sharing soft drinks and stories in the bar and listening to everything they had to say. Her relationship with Mike had been a passport to most parts of the camp and no one felt they had to be on guard when she was around. It was only when Mike had escaped from the Russian base and been picked up by the US Navy that Fatima Trigo’s role had been exposed. Otherwise she would undoubtedly have returned to the base to continue her intelligence gathering. Mike knew exactly what he intended to do Fatima if he ever bumped into her in a dark alley. And kisses and caresses were definitely not on the menu.
The DIA had prepared an extension to their forward operating base and ringed it with security. No one came in and no one went out of the restricted area. Nobody in the camp below the local operational commanders was going to know who was in the new security zone. Supplies had been stockpiled before the team arrived. Their weapons and equipment had been prepared, checked and delivered for inspection the day before the guys were dropped by two military helicopters on the far side of the new camp. They arrived by night wearing typical ISIS gear, faces covered and not a word spoken between them. The entire forward operating base went into lock down and two Apache helicopters were on permanent stand-by to respond to any attempt to breach the security perimeter. Mike and his team settled in and began their final preparations for the mission. There was an atmosphere of tension and one of the guys even spoke privately to Mike about dropping out. His girlfriend was pregnant and he was starting to have doubts about whether he was coming back alive or dead. It was too late to change his mind. And Mike just didn’t have any personnel in reserve to replace the man. Twelve guys in the assault team and a four-man reconnaissance patrol to act as a diversion. If anything, they were short-handed. If they lost a team member to accident or illness, they wouldn’t have time to find, train and prepare a replacement. Zero hour was approaching. It was time to put their balls on the barbecue and Mike had to accept that at least one of his guys was having second thoughts about the mission’s viability. He’d have to keep an eye on the guy to make sure he didn’t lose concentration. Every man was dependent on everyone else. That’s how it worked. They were only as strong as the weakest link in the chain.
At sundown on the second evening, the teams mounted up in their transport choppers, weighed down with equipment and stooped over with the burden of their combat packs. Mike had drawn extra munitions. It meant carrying more gear and that was never a popular option for the guys who had to carry the extra weight. If the mission ended up in a firefight, the team would need the heavier firepower to even up their chances of getting away. That meant MANPATS, man-portable anti-tank systems, the kind of missiles that could be launched from the shoulder and used against tanks, helicopters and fortified positions. Mike called them equalisers because they could even the odds against a more numerous and heavily-armed enemy. It was the kind of firepower that gave Mike a little more confidence and improved their chances of escape. With the extra ammo and the additional weapons, the guys looked more like trainee astronauts preparing for a walk on the moon. They were complaining as the helicopter turbines spooled up and Mike took that as a good sign because all soldiers complained. It went with the job. The time to worry was when they stopped bitching.
The team’s insertion had to be timed with the diversionary cruise missile strikes that would cover the choppers’ arrivals and departures. Blowing the crap out of known ISIS positions was one thing. Dropping high explosive missiles on a Russian military base was the short route to battlefield nuclear weapon deployment and the countdown to Armageddon. Mike’s team had to look like a dedicated band of militiamen with a helluva grievance against Damascus and its allies. The militias were regularly targeted by Russian attack helicopters and ground-support jets. Washington had often wished that the Russians would be as aggressive against ISIS. It was only to be expected that the militias would strike back against the Russians if they had the opportunity. The anomaly lay in the fact that the Russian base was so far north of the lines that divided the main, warring factions. But no one could say for sure which of the militias was exclusively located in one particular region. They were mobile, they moved a
round and had even set off explosions in Damascus. They might just be crazy enough to attack a heavily-fortified Russian base in the north of the country. The militias had certainly done crazier things in the past. Now it was time to put the theory to the test.
A dull glow to the east revealed the ISIS targets for the cruise missile strikes. Buildings were burning and secondary explosions echoed in the distance. Mike nodded grimly. Cruise missiles were expensive but it looked as if the money had been put to good use this time. The team still had a long march in front of them. They’d chosen an old dried-up river bed for the first half of the night march simply because it provided the best cover. It meant a longer walk but they couldn’t be absolutely sure that the Russians weren’t using night vision or thermal imaging equipment even at such a distance from their base. Staying out of sight provided the best defence against being spotted before they got within striking distance of the target. The night was cold and the equipment was heavy. By the time the combat group reached the end of the old river course though, they were sweating and Mike silently signalled a halt. Water bottles were opened and the guys hit the hydration and energy bar routines that were standard fare on active duty. Mike dropped his pack and waved one of the men forward to go with him. The two men crept silently ahead with their weapons pointing forwards to check out the route in front of them, scanning the horizon and focusing on the image intensifiers that revealed the terrain as if it were lit up by moonlight. The wind blew a haze of dust across their pathway and they instinctively hunched down and narrowed their eyes to protect them from the swirling cloud of grit that stuck to their exposed skin and left a grimy film on their faces. By the time they crept back, the team was ready to move out, weapons cradled and senses tuned to the sights and sounds and even the faint smells that carried on the desert air.
An hour before dawn, the teams began preparing their lay up position to wait out the heat of the desert sun and conceal themselves as if they’d merged with the dust and rock of the stony plateau. Satellite imagery had pinpointed a suitable location for the hide out and the team had divided into two so that they could each provide covering fire if the other group was compromised. They were experts in the art of concealment and they settled in for their lay up, glad to be free from the heavy burden of their equipment and ready to take their turns on guard duty, in between resting up and sleeping. Mike checked every man to make absolutely sure that everyone was in the right shape, both physically and mentally. Once the mission was underway, most of the doubts evaporated and the hard training took over. They might be mercenaries, hired guns and a completely deniable force, but every soldier knew what he had to do. Nobody needed to be reminded. Nobody was going to shirk his responsibilities. No one was going to let down his buddies. Mike had quipped during a rest break, ‘Hey, I know they’re heavy, but if we don’t get to fire the missiles, we can always sell them to the Kurds and add a fat bonus to the DIA pay check.’ The guys had laughed quietly. ‘Mike, if we don’t fire them, we should make you carry them all the way back to base!’ ‘Sure. No problem. Then I get to keep all the cash from the Kurds. They’d sell their grandmothers to get their hands on these babies.’ ‘Yeah. Sure. I wish their grandmothers were here right now to carry the bastards!’
The lay up positions provided excellent visibility of the surrounding terrain. The teams could not be approached from any angle without a sentry spotting the enemy’s movement. In many ways, this was the easier part of the operation. Mike swallowed a mouthful of warm water from his canteen and chewed on a salt tablet, ignoring the heat and conserving body movement to a minimum. They would approach their target that night after a hard march across the stony desert, dog-legging between rocky outcrops to obtain as much concealment as possible. It looked as if the Russians had adopted the same tactics they’d used in Afghanistan, preferring to fortify a position and keep patrolling activities to a minimum. That should mean that the DIA team could get within striking distance of the base without running into mobile scouts or sentries. Mike guessed that the base’s northerly position put it outside of the theatre of combat, at least in the minds of the Russians. They were about to get a wake-up call that should nicely shatter that particular delusion.
As evening approached and the heat of the day evaporated, a cloudless sky revealed a star-studded night that was quite breathtakingly beautiful. Mike couldn’t help shaking his head in wonder. You really had to be in the middle of the desert at nightfall to appreciate the glory of such a perfect vision of natural beauty. It was spellbinding. It was deeply moving. And the team had to get moving and cover a lot of terrain before sunrise. They shouldered their packs, settled their weapons into a comfortable position on their arms and set out in formation towards the north, moving between the desert rock formations, but always heading north, homing in on their target. It had crossed Mike’s mind on numerous occasions and he’d checked all the available intel but he was strangely curious to know if the Russians had deployed their Spetsnaz special forces at the base. No one knew for sure but Mike was definitely hoping they’d be there. He still had debts to pay and scores to settle. He still had crazy pictures at the back of his mind of lines of heads on spikes. Spetsnaz heads. He was concentrating on the route ahead but inside he was smiling at the grisly thought. It was a part of his psychological profile that made the company shrink reach for his private stock of tranquilisers whenever he wrote up his case notes.
The team made good time as they marched steadily across the rocky desert floor. They were navigating with a military grade global positioning system but the stars were so clear and bright that they could’ve found their way just by following the ancient constellations that turned slowly above their heads. Despite the weight of their gear and the pace of the march, some of the men were enjoying the magnificent beauty of the night sky, breathing in the cool, fresh air and feeling so completely alive that it was easy to understand why they signed up for special ops. It was the rush, the unbelievably intense excitement that accompanied a firefight, the thrill of the danger, the powerful sense of being alive in the face of imminent death. The primeval instinct that celebrated victory over defeat. Life over death. Once you’d tasted the thrill of close quarter combat, nothing could ever come close to the wildly addictive adrenaline rush that made you feel so completely and utterly alive in every cell of your body. Nothing would ever come close to it. It was a primeval part of the human condition and it survived, flourished and prospered in all its blood-soaked glory into the twenty-first century.
The GPS told them where to lay up long before they saw the lights of the perimeter fences. As the team dropped their packs and concealed themselves, Mike took three men with him to scout the defences from a safe distance, keeping low and blending in with the rock and scrub, hiding in the deep pools of shadow cast by the bright starlight. They were checking first hand that the satellite imagery was up to date and that nothing had changed since their last briefing at the DIA forward operating base. To go or to wait. It was Mike’s decision as team leader and he had to determine the best time to launch the assault. They could hide for another day in their lay up positions, out of sight of the enemy but still at risk of discovery. Or they could attack within the next thirty minutes. The sooner they made the assault, the sooner they could execute the withdrawal and get their asses out of Dodge. The team was thoroughly prepared; the ground had been covered in great detail by the three-dimensional satellite photos. One of the scouting team looked at Ducane. ‘So, what do you reckon, skipper?’ Mike ran his binoculars over the terrain one more time and noted all the details, comparing the features before him with the satellite images he’d recorded in his head. ‘OK. Let’s do it.’ He nodded to his three-man fire team and they slipped noiselessly back towards the lay up position to the south. With simple gestures, Mike assembled his men and looked carefully at their camouflaged faces. ‘Everything’s exactly as the satellite imagery confirmed. Sooner we get the job done, sooner we can get back and hit the cold beers and cash those
bonuses.’ The men nodded in agreement. He returned their nods of agreement and smiled, white teeth contrasting against the dull, black camo grease that masked his features. ‘Alright. This is it. Show time, boys! Let’s get going and earn those bonuses.’
In one smooth, practised sequence, the twelve-man assault team loaded up their combat gear, tightened the webbing on their packs and formed up to begin their silent, crouching approach onto the Russian perimeter. There was no more room for doubts. There was no room for hesitation or for second thoughts. It really was time for everyone to earn their bonuses.
The first challenge was to make sure they weren’t spotted by the enemy. The Russians had cleared the terrain surrounding the perimeter to create unobstructed fields of fire but there were still dips and depressions in the landscape that could provide cover. Mike took point, acknowledging the fact that he had a phenomenal memory for terrain. As long as the men approached on their hands and knees and bellies and kept a very low profile, they could sneak up on their targets without being detected. The second challenge was to navigate the minefield that ringed the Russian base. That was less of a challenge than Mike had first assumed. The DIA tech specialists had been given access to some very useful and top secret technology. Advanced, ground-penetrating military radar had identified the location of every mine in the vicinity and revealed pathways that allowed the DIA team to bypass the danger. The Russian engineers had sown a complex pattern of anti-personnel mines alongside more powerful anti-vehicle explosives. There were no anti-tank mines around the perimeter for the simple reason that the Russians didn’t expect to be attacked by tanks. As additional insurance, the Russians had stationed a pod of attack helicopters within the compound. That meant no tank or armoured vehicle could approach within five kilometres of the base. The Russians could sleep well at night. They had every good reason to feel completely secure within their fortifications. It was a classic Russian military response to the challenge of securing themselves in a foreign and potentially hostile territory: button up behind defensive fortifications. It was the same approach that had cost them the war in Afghanistan. Mike was grateful for the fact that the Russians hadn’t sent our patrols to secure the surrounding area. The simple fact was that they didn’t see the need.