by John Ringo
"You should have taken a piss before we left," one of the guards growled, turning back from a glance over his shoulder at the Islamics. The guy was just about covered in frag grenades. Personally, Mike hated the things. He used them when he had to but never carried more than one unless absolutely necessary. He'd seen too many people frag themselves. This fucker clearly loved the damned things. Stupid fuck.
"Tea," Mike muttered back. Over the last year his Russian had gotten perfect and while accented, the accent didn't sound American. That was because it was a Keldara accent. But the Russian would have to be quick as hell to notice that in the middle of an op.
Suddenly, Mike was just another of the Spetznaz guards. Several of them sported ponchos virtually identical to his. Same gun, same walk, same wariness.
Just one problem.
The two groups had stopped about sixty yards apart. That was fine; there were Keldara positioned on the far side of the engagement. The two groups would pincer the meet as soon as Mike initiated. But Mike had intended to get to the package and take it down, then initiate. It was the only way he could be sure there wouldn't be a nuke dropped on his head.
The problem was that the principals, and a select group of guards, were moving to the no-man's-land in the middle of the two groups. On the Russian side there were four guards, Sergei Rudenko and Arensky. Arensky was carrying what Mike presumed was the package, a briefcase. On the Islamic side there were four guards, these guys encumbered with bags but still with their hands on their weapons, Al-Kariya the Al Qaeda money man from the bulk and another guy, slimmer, nobody Mike knew about.
There was no way that Mike could approach that group. Too much ground to cover. Too open. Too obvious.
Fuck.
Mike wandered one way, then back, looking up at the woods where the Keldara waited, then stopped by where he'd come out of the stream. Three of the Russians had gathered there, not exactly taking advantage of the shelter of one of the Mercedes SUVs they'd come in but close. One of them was the guy who had challenged Mike's "bathroom trip."
Fuck. This was gonna suck.
As he approached the group his BFT device buzzed, once. Adams was initiating. Out of time.
He reached over, casually pulled a pin out of one of the frags on the guy's harness and then pushed the man, hard, into the group.
Two steps and he was rolling across the hood of the Mercedes SUV, hitting the ground on the far side on both feet and aiming into the group of principals.
"Lasko! Go!"
* * *
Lasko had been continually adjusting his aim based on his read of the wind and, ignoring the sudden crash of multiple grenades, his finger stroked the trigger as soon as he heard the "Go" command.
"Target down," Sion muttered. "Shift right. Sniper on ridgeline. Target down. I lost the third one."
"Jackrabbiting," Lasko said. "Back . . ."
There was a thud next to him and looking over it was clear that Sion was not going to be drinking any more beer. Or, what was worse, doing any more spotting.
He was already down as the next round cracked overhead.
"Right," Lasko muttered. "If that's the way you want to play it."
He had two more hides prepared. Time to play the game.
"Sniper teams, engage targets in valley," Lasko said, thumbing his throat mike. "I'll take the enemy sniper."
Mike triggered a burst into the group of principals, trying for the distant figure that he assumed to be Sergei. The man was next to Arensky, anyway. Arensky and Al-Kariya were easy to spot. Neither one of them looked as if they knew what to do in the firefight that was erupting around them.
What he got, instead, were the two guards who moved to place themselves by the principals. It was the right move but it cost them their lives.
Sergei snatched the case away from Arensky and picked him up by the collar, pounding towards the nearest vehicle as the mujahideen closed in around Al-Kariya and began firing at the Russians.
Suddenly it was a free-for-all. Both groups, highly suspicious of each other, thought that they had been betrayed. The Russians were laying down fire on the fedayeen as the fedayeen backed up to their vehicles. Rounds were cracking downrange in both directions as Mike leapt to his feet and began pounding towards the retreating Russian.
Mike had counted on that. He figured when things went south, especially if it was from fire within the area, they would start fighting each other.
Neither group noticed, until too late, that they were being attacked from behind.
"Back!" Rashid shouted, drawing a pistol out of his robes.
He couldn't see who had fired but the explosion looked as if it must have been a rocket launcher and some of the Russians were down. The pig Sergei Rudenko had dragged the doctor, and the smallpox, away. The Russians were clearly attacking them, it was time to run.
"Protect Al-Kariya!" Haza shouted at the same moment, dropping to a knee and firing at the Russians on the other side of the open area. The fire from the SK-74 was short, controlled bursts. He fired twice then rolled to the side towards the riverbed, up on a knee, two more bursts.
Rashid grabbed the money man by the arm and started backing away, firing his pistol in the general direction of the Russians.
"Come Haji Al-Kariya!" Rashid said but Al-Kariya had already picked up the hem of his robe and turned to the rear, breaking into a rather fast run for a man of his bulk.
The fedayeen guards were moving forward, their training in such a situation to be to counterattack then withdraw. They were having to fire around the principals but they were all more than capable of doing so.
Rashid made it to the relative safety of the first pickup in line and ran to the rear, dropping down and fumbling for a magazine.
"We must get the smallpox," Al-Kariya said. He had dropped into the mud of the road next to the younger financier and was panting heavily. "We must."
"The money is in the road back there," Rashid snarled. "We have to get that."
"To the devil with the money," Al-Kariya said, hefting himself to his feet as the last of the fedayeen dashed forward. "The smallpox is what matters!"
"Haza will get it if it is possible," Rashid assured him. "I will go forward and tell him." The younger man had just seated the magazine, it was not a natural thing for him, and looked up into the barrel of a weapon.
"Tell him what, pray?" a camouflage-clad figure asked in passable Arabic.
Rashid carefully set the pistol on the ground.
"Uh, sayyidi, you might want to raise your hands. Very slowly."
Mike pounded across the open area, trying to look like a guard closing in to secure his principle. As he did, he started taking fire from the fedayeen, some of it damned close.
"Uh, guys," Mike panted, keying his throat mike. "I could use some fucking FIRE here! And be aware that I'm in the middle of this gunfight!"
"Move! Move!" Sawn shouted as the Keldara boiled out of the streambed.
They were practically on top of the rear Russian vehicles. The Russians were concentrated on their firefight with the fedayeen and at first didn't even notice the fire coming in from behind. Guys were dying in the rain. When a person's hit, they generally fall forward whether they're hit from the back or the front. And most of them had guys behind them firing past them. Most of them were snuggled into the dubious cover of the trucks, anyway. As were the fedayeen.
Sawn bounded forward and triggered a three-round burst into the broad back of a Russian crouched into the wheel well of one of the Mercedes SUVs. The fighter slumped into the wheel and his weapon fell to the ground out of slack fingers.
As Sawn moved forward, shooting in the back another Russian who had been firing around the next vehicle in line, Sawn's number two pumped another burst into the Russian, just to make sure.
Some of them seemed to notice the fire from behind them, a few turned around. But by then it was too late. The Keldara were bounding forward in two-man teams, spread on either side of the trucks, enga
ging targets with their backs turned who were concentrated on firing to their front. It was almost too easy. It wasn't a firefight, it was a slaughter.
"We are coming, Kildar!" Sawn replied, keying his own mike. "We are coming."
Lasko slid into place and scanned the far ridge. There were cooling forms in the thermal imager but the difference between that and someone heavily cloaked was hard to determine.
He had pulled a ghillie cloak up and pulled up both his balaclava and face mask. The combination was going to reduce his thermal image. The sniper on the far ridge had to be using a thermal imager; there was no way to pick someone out at this range in this blackness using an NVG.
There had been three pairs on the far ridge. He counted one, two . . . six cooling forms. Wait.
He fired without thinking, ducking at the same time to hear the enemy round pass overhead.
He rolled to the right, slid down the slope then up behind a tree, peering out again. Where the slightly hotter spot had been . . . Nothing. He needed a spotter, someone to check all the cooling targets for him but . . .
There. A sudden warm spot. Barely different from the background.
There was no time for careful measurement, no time for consideration. The rifle, again, slammed into his shoulder a surprise as it always was when the shot was good. He jerked back then, instead of moving, came right back up.
The hotspot . . . was still there. But . . . cooler.
"That's for you, Sion," Lasko whispered.
Revenge is a dish best served . . . cooler.
Fucking blackasses.
Ivar Terekhov wished that there was some selective plague that would wipe all the blackass Muslims from the face of the earth. He had joined the Russian Army as a conscript but after his first tour in Chechnya he had reenlisted to join Spetznaz. One mission to "support" a convoy that had already been overrun by the fucking Chechens was all it took. One look at the mutilated bodies of his friends, his fellow soldiers, and the formerly laid back Moscovite had hated the blackasses with a burning passion.
Oh, he'd lost his innocence over the years, as mission after mission had been completely fucked up by higher command. He had come to understand that incompetence and corruption were the reality of his motherland, just as betrayal was the nature of the Islamic. He had quit, he had taken pay from the mob, he had even attacked the motherland on more than one occasion. But he still hated fucking blackasses.
Unlike a lot of his peers he had studied them, had read a translation of their Koran, had read Western papers on their culture. He wanted to know what drove their thinking. And the thing that he came to, over and over again, was that the Prophet, spit be upon his grave, had promised them paradise for every lie they told an unbeliever. They weren't just untrustworthy, they were the definition of untrustworthy. They would rather lie to an unbeliever than tell the truth. Betrayal, to them, was as natural as breathing.
This firefight proved it. How they had slipped into their midst and detonated Matvei's grenades Ivar wasn't sure. But they clearly had. Matvei and his grenades might occasion some joking among the "Group" but he never made mistakes with them.
Now he had the chance to kill fucking mutilating, betraying blackasses and he intended to send as many of them to meet their Prophet in hell as he possibly could.
Another moved across the open area in front and he targeted the figure, fired five rounds and dropped him. Fire was coming from the streambed that the muj had been headed for but even that was slackening off.
They were winning. Fuck these blackass motherfuckers. They would have the money and the biologicals. Hopefully, Sergei would just destroy the latter. Then they could all retire on a nice trop . . .
Tunnel vision has an evolutionary purpose; it permits the mind to avoid distraction and concentrate on the "prey." It is probably derived from early hunting necessity; prey in herds scattered and crossed, making it hard to concentrate on just one target. Tunnel vision permitted the early human predator to ignore those distractions and dial down on just one prey. But the problem with it is that sometimes a distraction is important. Such as the "distraction" of someone coming up behind you and putting two rounds through the back of your head.
Gena Mahona was getting a bit sick of this.
He was a fighter. That was what the Keldara were raised to be; they took it in with their first sip of beer which was usually administered in the nursery. A weapon was placed in their hand while the afterbirth was still extruding from their mother's womb. The highest calling was to die in battle, eyes broad and screaming defiance into the face of their enemies.
The American way of war that the Kildar taught was colder, quieter, in many ways more merciless. But this was just sickening.
The mujahideen they were fighting were very good. They were aiming, they were taking cover. But they weren't looking behind them. They had had a security force out to the rear. But as soon as the firing started, the security force had oriented towards the Russians. Most of them had run forward to engage the obvious enemy.
He was shooting people in the back. A lot of people. He had stopped counting at four kills.
Even the muj that had taken cover in the stream weren't paying attention to their rear. They were firing in short bursts, reloading, firing, all of it perfectly drilled and automatic. But they didn't seem to notice the sound of the Keldara sloshing down the stream, or even the occasional curse as one slipped on a slime-covered rock. When one fell they assumed it was from the fire to the front, even though that was slackening off.
There were only three he could see still firing. One was clearly out of rounds and turned to his fellow, saying something quick in Arabic. But that had caused him to look around, finally.
"Don't," Gena said, quietly, as the rest of the team started to gather to either side.
The fedayeen looked at him, wide-eyed, then at the trail of bodies faintly visible in the streambed.
"Just . . . don't."
The fedayeen cursed and reached into his robe as his companion started to turn . . .
It wasn't good fire discipline, but the nine Keldara gathered in the streambed expended over thirty-six rounds on the last three mujahideen.
Just sickening. It made you want to weep. The Father of All wasn't going to consider this a battle. This wasn't exactly going to get him to the Halls of Feasting.
On the other hand, there were a bunch of dead fedayeen and in the grand scheme of things he had to consider that a plus.
Sergei hurled Dr. Arensky into the front seat of the Mercedes then climbed over him into the driver's seat.
"Make one stupid move," Sergei threatened, turning the key. "Yakov! Dmitri? Fuck . . ." He put the car in drive and looked in his rearview mirror. He'd thought the fucking blackasses had hit them but now he could see camouflage-clad figures moving down the line of vehicles, firing into the unprotected backs of his men. "It's not the blackasses!" He screamed over the team circuit. "You're being hit from behind!"
It was clearly too late. The blackasses were firing to the rear as well, clearly they'd been hit from both directions. It was a total fuckup.
Time to get the fuck out, then.
The blackasses had pulled into the Georgian road, blocking it. Not that he wanted to go that way. The proper escape route was up into Russia. But the only road open was the one to Azerbaijan. Fine.
He put his foot down and peeled out, all four tires screaming at the wet gravel.
Time to fly.
"No, no, NO! FUUUCK!" Mike screamed up at the clouds. As rounds cracked over his head from behind him he ripped off the poncho and triggered a UV strobe on his shoulder. "Check fucking FIRE!" he screamed into his throat mike. "This fucking op is BLOWN! The package is in movement. Repeat, the package is ACTIVE! Lasko, stop that VEHICLE!"
"That is not good," the President said. "Is the B-2 on station?"
"Ready to drop," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. He'd been brought in late in the operation but was fully up to speed at this point.
"All the codes have been given. Literally, all you have to do is give the drop order."
"Minuet?" the President said.
"One minute," she replied.
"We don't have one minute," the secretary of defense pointed out. "Those things do have a limited blast range. It's big, but it's limited."
"Give me the Kildar," the President said.
"LASKO?"
"Negative, Kildar," Lasko replied. "The target is out of view."
Mike was already in one of the Mercedes and starting it. Fortunately they all had keys in the ignition. He jerked it into gear just as he felt thumps in the back.