Dead or Alive

by Grant Blackwood

  Walking point, Tait stopped and held up a closed fist, bringing the staggered column to a halt. Driscoll dropped into a crouch, as did the rest of the team in near unison. Down the line, M4s came around, each man taking a sector, eyes watching and ears listening. They were in a narrow canyon-so narrow, Driscoll doubted the ten-foot-wide ravine actually qualified as a canyon-but they had little choice. It was either take this three-hundred-meter shortcut or tack another two klicks onto their route and risk a daylight pickup. They’d heard and seen nothing since the ambush, but that didn’t mean much. The URC knew this ground better than anyone, and knew from experience how long it took pack-laden soldiers to cover it. Worse still, they knew there were a limited number of LZs from which the enemy could be retrieved. From there, setting up another ambush was simply a matter of doing the math of moving faster than your quarry.

  Without turning, Tait gave Driscoll the underhand move up signal. Driscoll did so. “What’s up?” he whispered.

  “Coming to the end. Another thirty meters or so.”

  Driscoll turned around, pointed at Barnes, held up two fingers, then gave the move up signal. Barnes, Young, and Gomez were there in ten seconds. “End of the ravine,” Driscoll explained. “See what there is to see.”

  “Right, boss.”

  They moved off. Behind Driscoll came Collins’s voice: “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Fine.” The six ibuprofen Collins had given him had taken the edge off, but every jostle sent ripples of pain through his shoulder, back, and neck.

  “Get your pack off.” Collins didn’t wait for Driscoll to protest, slipping off the shoulder strap. “Bleeding’s slowed. You feel your fingers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Move ’em.”

  Driscoll flipped him the bird and grinned. “How’s that?”

  “Touch each finger to your thumb.”

  “Jesus, Collins-”

  “Do it.” Driscoll complied, but each of his fingers moved sluggishly, as though rusted at the joint. “Get your pack off. I’m distributing your load.” Driscoll opened his mouth to protest, but the medic cut him off. “Look, you keep that pack on, you can just about count on losing that arm later. Good chance you already got some nerve damage, and that sixty pounds ain’t helping.”

  “Okay, okay…”

  Barnes, Young, and Gomez returned. Collins handed the pack to Barnes, who went back down the line to divide up the contents. Young reported to Driscoll, “Didn’t see nothing, but something’s moving out there. Heard a truck engine about half a klick to the west.”

  “Okay, back in line. Collins, you, too.”

  Driscoll pulled out the map and clicked on his red-hooded penlight. Not exactly standard-issue, but as good as their NV was for most things, it was shit for reading maps. Some old-school habits were hard to break; some shouldn’t be broken at all.

  Tait scooted closer. Driscoll traced his finger along the ravine in which they sat; at its terminus was yet another canyon bordered on both sides by plateaus. The terrain was, Driscoll thought, not unlike an urban neighborhood: canyons were the main roads; plateaus the houses; and ravines the back alleys. They were essentially dashing across the roads, using the alleys between the houses to reach the airport. Or in this case, the heliport. Two more canyons, one more ravine, he thought, then up the side of a plateau to the LZ.

  “Home stretch,” Tait observed.

  Which is where most racehorses go down, Driscoll thought but didn’t say.

  They sat at the mouth of the ravine for fifteen minutes, Tait and Driscoll scanning the length of the canyon through the NV until certain there were no eyes about. In pairs the team crossed the canyon floor to the opposite ravine while the rest provided cover and Driscoll and Tait played traffic cops. Young and his prisoner went last, and they had just slipped into the far ravine when a pair of headlights appeared to the east. Another UAZ, Driscoll saw immediately, but this one was moving at a leisurely pace.

  “Hold,” Driscoll ordered. “Truck coming from the east.”

  Like the one they’d encountered earlier, this UAZ bore an NSV 12.7-millimeter gun in the bed, but Driscoll counted only one man manning it. Same for the cab: a driver and no one else. They’d split their forces in hopes of cutting off their quarry. Small-unit tactics were often as much about instinct as they were rules, but whoever had dispatched this truck had made a mistake. The UAZ kept coming, tires crunching over the rubble, its headlights bouncing off the canyon.

  Driscoll caught Tait’s attention and mouthed driver and got a nod in return. On the radio, Driscoll whispered, “Hold fire,” and got a double-click in reply.

  The UAZ was twenty meters away now, close enough that Driscoll could see the NSV gunner’s face clearly in the green-white glow of the night vision. Just a kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with a patchy beard. The NSV’s barrel was pointed straight down the canyon, not traversing, as it should be. Lazy’s as good as dead, he thought.

  The UAZ drew even with the ravine and ground to a halt. In the cab, the driver leaned sideways, reaching for something, then came up with a handheld spotlight. He pointed it out the passenger window. Driscoll laid his M4’s crosshairs just above the gunner’s left ear. He squeezed the trigger, softly, softly, and the M4 bucked. In the NV, a halo of mist appeared around the gunner’s head. He fell straight down below the truck bed’s side. The driver went down a split second later, his spotlight dancing crazily before coming to rest on the seat.

  Driscoll and Tait moved out, crossing to the truck and taking twenty seconds to kill the spotlight and make sure no one was still alive before continuing on to the ravine. To the west, an engine revved. Headlights pinned them. Driscoll didn’t bother looking but barked, “Move, move!” and kept going with Tait a step ahead. The rapid, overlapping cough of another NSV started up, peppering the ground and rocks around them, but Driscoll and Tait were already in the ravine. On point, Gomez was moving deeper into the ravine. Driscoll signaled for Tait to continue and waved Barnes over. “SAW,” he said, and Barnes dropped prone beside a boulder, extended the SAW’s legs, and tucked the butt into his shoulders. At the mouth of the ravine they could see headlights coming closer. Driscoll slipped a grenade off his harness and pulled the pin. Out in the canyon came the skidding of tires; dust washed past the mouth of the ravine. Driscoll let the spoon go, counted one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, letting the grenade cook, then arced it high toward the canyon. The UAZ slewed to a stop. The grenade exploded ten feet over the cab. Barnes opened up with the SAW, hosing down the doors and sides. In the bed, the NSV’s muzzle spouted fire but went silent a moment later as the SAW’s fusillade cut the gunner down. The UAZ’s gears crunched, and then it was moving again and out of sight.

  “Go,” Driscoll ordered, waited for Barnes to get a head start, then turned to follow.

  By the time they caught up with the column, Gomez had split the team, one half across the canyon, behind cover and on overwatch, the other waiting at the mouth of the ravine. Driscoll made his way up the line to Gomez. “Activity?”

  “Engines, no movement.”

  Across the canyon, thirty meters west of the overwatch, was a natural ramp winding its way up the side of the plateau. Sure as hell looked man-made, Driscoll thought, but time and erosion did strange things to terrain. And they weren’t going to bitch about this oddity; it would make their final push for the LZ relatively easy.

  “Peterson, get Blade on the line and tell ’em we’re ready. Call it hot.”

  Their Chinook would be orbiting, awaiting their signal. Like most things in combat and certainly most things in Afghanistan, their LZ was suboptimal, partly due to the landscape and partly due to the Chinook’s design trade-off: a high operational ceiling but a big landing footprint. The 47 could get to troops at altitude but needed a fair amount of square footage to embark them. In this case, their LZ was hemmed in to the west and south by ravines and ridgelines so close that small-arms fire could reach it.

  “Blade, this i
s Sickle, over.”

  “Go ahead, Sickle.”

  “Ready for pickup. Winds three to six from north to south. Lima zulu hot; composition and direction unknown.”

  “Roger, copy lima zulu hot. Three minutes out.” Two minutes later: “Sickle, Blade is inbound, mark your location.”

  “Roger, stand by,” Driscoll said, then radioed Barnes. “Chemlights, Barnes.”

  “Roger, boss. I’ve got blue, yellow, red.”

  Across the canyon the chemlights glowed to life, then sailed through the air and landed atop the plateau. Driscoll would’ve preferred an IR strobe, but S4 had been out when they’d left.

  Driscoll called, “Blade, Sickle, I pop blue, yellow, red.”

  “Roger, I see it.”

  Now they heard it, the chopping of the Chinook’s rotors. Then: “Sickle, this is Blade, I have inbound vehicles three hundred meters to your west and closing. I count two UAZs, over.”

  Shit. “Wave off, wave off. Mark the LZ and hold in orbit.” The only other option was to have the Chinook’s gunners light up the UAZs, but doing so from altitude would serve as a “here we are” flare for other enemy units in the area. The Chinook pilot would have his own ROE, or Rules of Engagement, but as he and his Rangers were on scene and in the shit, it was Driscoll’s order to give. That the UAZs weren’t racing toward them told him his unit hadn’t yet been seen. They’d been lucky so far with these things; there was no use pushing it.

  “Roger, waving off,” replied the Chinook pilot.

  To Barnes: “We got company to the west. Douse those chemlights. Everybody hunker down.” Behind him, the column dropped flat.

  He got a double-click in reply, then a few moments later saw a pair of hunched-over figures scrambling up to the plateau. The chemlights went dark.

  Down the canyon, the UAZ headlights were now stationary. Faintly, Driscoll heard the rumble of their unmuffled engines. A long thirty seconds passed, then the engines revved up and the trucks began moving, separating into a staggered line as they headed down the canyon. Bad sign, Driscoll thought. On the move, the UAZs tended to prefer single-file formation. It was only when they were expecting trouble did they stagger.

  “Cover,” Driscoll radioed the team. “Gomers are hunting.” Then to the Chinook: “Blade, Sickle, stay close. We may need you.”

  “Roger.”

  Preceded by headlights bouncing over the uneven ground, the crunch of the UAZ tires continued down the canyon until the first truck drew even with the ravine in which Driscoll and his column were hidden. The brakes squealed. The UAZ came to a stop; the second one, trailing thirty feet behind, also halted. A spotlight appeared in the passenger window and played over the walls, pausing as it reached the ravine. Move on, Gomer, Driscoll thought. Nothing to see here. Now the spotlight swung around, pointing out the driver’s window and scanning the opposite ravine. After sixty seconds of this the spotlight went dark. The lead UAZ’s transmission crunched and growled, then it began moving forward and beyond Driscoll’s line of sight.

  “Who’s got eyes?” he radioed.

  “Got him,” Barnes called. “Fifty meters away, continuing east.” Then: “Hundred meters… They’re stopping.”

  Driscoll eased himself up and hunch-walked out of the ravine, taking care to keep close to the canyon’s rock wall until he could see the halted UAZs. He dropped to his belly and peered through the NV. Each truck had taken up position at the northern and southern sides of the canyon. Their headlights and engines were off. Ambush position.

  “Everybody stay put and stay quiet,” Driscoll ordered, then got the Chinook on the line. “Blade, Sickle.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Our UAZs have taken up position at the eastern end of the canyon.”

  “Roger, we see ’em. Be advised, Sickle, we are eight minutes to bingo.”

  Eight minutes until the Chinook was at the do-or-die turnaround point. A delay beyond that and they wouldn’t have enough fuel to RTB, or return to base. For Rangers, working with thin margins was par for the course, but there were some things you fucked with at your peril, and your ride home was chief among them.

  “Understood. Engage UAZs. Anything on wheels is yours.”

  “Roger, engaging.”

  The Chinook appeared over the top of the plateau, its nav lights flashing as it wheeled and started easing west down the canyon. Driscoll could see the door gunner swiveling the minigun about. Driscoll radioed, “Gomez, get your team moving up the ramp.”

  “Roger, boss.”

  “Eyes on the target,” the Chinook pilot called. “Engaging…”

  The Dillon M134 minigun opened up, casting the side of the Chinook in orange. The barrage lasted less than two seconds, then came another, and one more, then the pilot was back: “Targets destroyed.” With a firing rate of three thousand rounds per minute, in those five or so seconds it had poured two hundred fifty 7.62-millimeter bullets into the approaching UAZs. The Chinook reappeared, sideslipped over the LZ, and touched down. The ramp came down.

  Gomez called, “Up on overwatch, Santa.”

  “Roger, moving to you.”

  Driscoll gave the order, and again in pairs the remainder of the team crossed the canyon floor, leapfrogging from cover to cover until Driscoll and Tait were across and headed up the ramp.

  “Target!” Driscoll heard over his headset. Not one of his, he decided, but somebody aboard the Chinook. “On the tail, seven o’clock!” West across the plateau came the chatter of automatic weapons-AK-47s, quickly followed by the crack of returning M4 fire.

  Driscoll and Tait reached the top of the ramp, dropped to their bellies, and crawled the last few feet. Fifty meters ahead, from inside a ravine and atop the ridgeline, muzzles were flashing. Driscoll counted at least three dozen. Down the canyon four pairs of headlights appeared in the dark. More UAZs.

  Peterson’s voice: “RPG, RPG…”

  To their right, something bright streaked past. The ground beside the Chinook erupted.

  “Move away, move away,” the pilot called, then did something Driscoll had never seen: Neat as you please, the pilot lifted off, stopped in a hover at six feet, then wheeled, bringing the door gunner to bear. “Heads down, heads down!” The Dillon opened up, arcing fire into the ravine and ridgeline.

  “Runner!” Driscoll heard faintly in his ear. “Heading west!”

  Sidelit by the Dillon’s tracers, their prisoner, still hand-cuffed, was staggering away from the Chinook and toward the draw. Tait muttered, “I got him, Santa.”

  “Drop him.”

  Tait’s M4 popped and their prisoner went down. The AK fire tapered off, then died. Driscoll called, “Blade, we got UAZs in the canyon. Two hundred meters and closing. Your three o’clock.”

  “Roger,” the pilot replied, and brought the Chinook around. Again the minigun opened up. Ten seconds was all it took. The dust drifted away, revealing the four demolished UAZs.

  “Head count,” Driscoll ordered. No response. “Head count!” he repeated. Collins replied. “Two KIA, Santa, and two wounded.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  The pilot called-calmly, Driscoll thought, Sickle, what say you fellas get aboard and we go home before our luck runs out?

  9

  IN ALL HIS YEARS living in Saint Petersburg, Yuriy Beketov had walked its darkened streets hundreds of times, but this time was different, and it didn’t take much contemplation to understand why. Wealth-or at least potential wealth-had a way of changing one’s perspective. And this kind of wealth was of a different sort. He wasn’t proud of the money in and of itself but rather the way in which he planned to apply it. What he was less certain about was whether that was truly a distinction or just a rationalization. If you danced with the devil for a very good reason, have you not still danced with the devil?

  Of all the cities in his homeland, Saint Petersburg was Yuriy’s favorite. The city’s own history was a near-perfect reflection of Russia’s history. In 1703 Peter the Great had found
ed the city during the Great Northern War with the Swedes; during World War One, Saint Petersburg’s name, deemed excessively Teutonic by the powers-that-be, was changed to Petrograd; in 1924, seven years after the Bolshevik Revolution and a few days after the death of Vladimir Lenin, it was dubbed Leningrad; and finally, in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was renamed once again-reverted to-Saint Petersburg.

  Saint Petersburg, a Time Capsule of Russian History. Not a bad title for a book, he thought. Too bad he had no literary aspirations. The tsars, the Bolsheviks, the fall of the empire, then finally democracy-though perhaps democracy tainted with a bit of totalitarianism.

  Tonight was especially chilly, with a brisk wind blowing off the Neva River and whistling through the branches of the trees. Unseen in the darkness, bits of litter skittered across concrete and cobblestones. Down a nearby alley came the clink of a bottle on brick, then a slurred curse. Another bic had either run out of vodka or spilled his last bit of it. For all his love for Saint Petersburg, Yuriy knew she’d fallen far from her zenith. This was true of the whole country.

  The collapse of the Union had been tough on everyone but had been especially tumultuous for his former employer, the KGB, now known dually as the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or Federal Security Service (FSB), and the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). These were only the latest in a long string of acronyms under which the Russian intelligence services had operated, starting with the dreaded Cheka. Arguably, though, the KGB-the Committee for State Security-had been the most effective and the most feared of all its alphabet-soup predecessors and descendants alike.